By This interesting little Kickstarter project caught my eye, and for a few different reasons. Its status as a simple battery charger isn’t the most exciting bit in the world — after all, portable chargers have been around for quite some time. Perhaps it’s the fuel can-shaped body that caught my eye. Perhaps it’s the tiny size, a size so small that you can attach fuel to your keychain.
Developed by Massachusetts-based Devotec, a maker of solar-powered Bluetooth speakers and phone changers, Fuel is said to be the next small gidget (not quite big enough to be a gadget) for your collection.
Looking at the device, you’ve probably guessed there can’t be much room for a big battery inside. You’d be right — fuel is only rated at about 220mAh, or enough to get you 20-30 minutes of talk time or 2-3 hours of extra standby time on typical smartphones. That’s not enough to get you going for the rest of your day should you run out of juice by noon, but it’s a nice pick-me-up for those days where you just can’t get to a wall outlet and need to stretch your phone’s life a tad longer.
The device plugs into your phone using a male microUSB cable, and receives charge through a female microUSB port on the other end. It is regulated by standard PCM and PCBs inside, has an on-off switch, and has LED indicators to let you know the status of the device. Fuel is rated for at least 500 charges, so it should be quite a while before you’ll need to replace it.
Kickstarter pledges start as low as $1 and the highest tier goes up to $20, so it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg for you to help make this into a reality. The goal is $20,000 April 19th, so if you’re interested in seeing this come to market be sure to get over to Kickstarter and put your dollars into the pool.
Maybe if it charged by solar too… But then again I’m rocking HTC so I have no need to charge for like 2 days.
hah! HTC is known for shitty battery life
yes they were… in 2010
Don’t bother, man…. Someone told me the other day they’d never go back to HTC after the crappy battery life on their Droid Eris. -_-
Yea but they’re still not known for good battery life.
Htc One X battery life is still shoddy…
why would they put the output connector on an angle?? the “cute” factor is not very functional.
There are already products on the market that do this that are “keychain chargers’
No need to prop up a “me too” kickstarter campaign.
Thats a teeny tiny battery, doesnt seem very useful to me.
meh
Hmmm…They’re aiming for a $24.99 retail price? Let’s see, I have an extra 3100mah battery (for my Note 2) that is as big as a few credit cards stacked up. I have a 1000mah Kensington backup charger w/ integrated microUSB that’s as big as a credit card holder (and costs $28 retail). So, their goal is to have people pay $24.99 for 220mah backup battery? Despite it being small enough to fit on a keychain, not sure how popular this will be, especially with screens getting bigger and bigger, as well as the requirement for a 2amp charger to charge up the big screens.
Yea this thing is pretty much worthless, considering that you can usually buy an extra battery for about $20-30. When I bought my GNex off of ebay it came with the extended 2100mAH battery and the standard 1800mAH battery. I use the extended one day to day and keep the standard one in my wallet for whenever I need it.
Could be quite a handy wee gizmo. If you’re out and about (at a theme park, for instance) and need a couple of extra hours to tide you over till you get back to the car (assuming you have a car charger) then this would do nicely, it’s not too big and clunky. I’m in!
The only way I could see this ever being useful is in emergency situations and only if you can charge the fuel and it hold it’s charge for weeks to a month.
The specs claim it can hold a charge for a month.
I would happily carry something a little bigger on my keychain. At least 1,000mAh. :/
Even 500mAH would be worth considering…but 220 might not be enough to even get my phone powered up if the battery was dead. lol
I don’t think that would be enough power for my note 2…
That’s fucking adorable.
But basically useless for today’s high-end specs.
This is why I have the RAZR MAXX HD.
$20 actually is a pretty good deal for a quick 30minute of battery left