May 2020

Implicitly Powered Devices

Implicitely human-poweredness is a proposal for battery-less interaction design. Rather than asking people to repeat a certain movement (e.g. a dyno-torch or rechargeable crank-battery) to generate energy for complex devices, I want energy harvesting mechanisms to be integrated such that you won't even notice it. I think this is possible if we strip devices and services to their core value proposition. For example, rather than a complex e-reader with Wi-Fi capabilities, I conceptualised a battery-less e-ink display, capable of storing a single e-book. Using the integrated handle, a single (180 degrees, not multiple) page-flip movement will generate the energy required to navigate to the next or previous page. I ideated six concepts, based on existing (functional) mechanisms, to illustrate this concept.

Contribution

I am increasingly more interested in the societal and environmental impact of our products and tools, and how might improve our unsustainable drive for more data and connectivity. I developed this concept and the six designs, which originally arose from experiments with low-energy hardware. I have a few more designs in mind, and - when I find the time - will start prototyping understand its viability.