A Russian inventor has created a wood-burning stove which can cook your food at the same time as charging your phone.
The device is perfect for campers, who can get some much-needed charge while out in the wilderness.
Perfect For Camping
The wood-burning stove is attached to a tiny generator, which helps it to turn heat into electric power at the same time as cooking the food. Inventor Aidar Khairullin has created the device to boil water, cook meat, or otherwise prepare food while a smartphone charges from the energy created.
You can pick one up for £80, but the first 100 have already been picked up. US and British tourists visiting Russia are amongst those who snapped up the first batch. It is named Tengu – a whimsical choice, after a Japanese spirit which is supposed to protect travellers.
Since the stove relies on open flames, it’s not something that could be used inside the home. But for outdoor pursuits, it works just fine. It looks just like an ordinary camping stove, though rather on the small side, and the generator attached can connect to mobile phones or similar devices safely.
“There is a fireproof wire attached to the metal body of a generator, made of titanium and stainless steel, that has a USB port,” explains the inventor. “To charge your gadget, you need to plug it into the USB port. Charging will take the same time as it would traditionally take thanks to a 10W power output. The device also has a power stabiliser to avoid alternating currents, so that the device is not damaged while charging. While the phone is charging, you can use the stove, for example, to boil water or fry meat.”
The device is great for the modern chef on the go: you can create fantastic outdoor meals at the same time as being able to grab a few snaps of your culinary creations for Instagram.
The Future of Camping
Now Khairullin, who hails from Ufa, is looking to create a version which will be powerful enough to run laptops. This could well be the future of portable charging devices, allowing customers to meet two goals with one action.
Khairullin’s invention has already gained him a lot of attention. He won an inventor’s contest in his native Russia with the stove, which gave him the funding needed to develop and market it. With an invention like this under his belt and more in the works, he could be a great candidate for plenty of international jobs with big developers in the future.
But where did he get the idea from? He says that he was dissatisfied with the charging rates that he found from other on-the-go chargers – the market is currently full of solar chargers, for example. With the burning wood adding extra power, his model is a lot faster, and can get the charging done in a shorter span of time.
New Ideas
So, now we’ve got a stove that can run a charger. What other innovative ideas could we see in the kitchen?
Campers would love more powerful charging from their stoves, but signal is always a problem when out in the middle of nowhere, too. Perhaps the Russian’s next invention could include a portable Wi-Fi hotspot which is powered up by the flames.
In the kitchen, meanwhile, an oven or stove-top burner which creates electricity could even help to power the rest of the devices in action. Restaurants could end up saving a fortune on bills, with gas power lighting up the whole venue via just one output!
