Walking, so they say, is good for you. Not only does it help you get from point A to point B in a leisurely pace but it also burns calories, gets that heart rate up and lets you listen to music uninterrupted for a few minutes. Aside from kicking things, it is one of the best things we can do with those two sausage links attached to our ankles. Now, thanks to the everlasting magic of wearable technology, this simplest of life’s pleasures might now be even more useful. Someone invented an attachment for shoes that charges electricity based on how many foot steps we make. It’s like a pedometer only, well, cool.
A team of Rice University engineering students have designed the device, which they have dubbed the PediPower. It mounts to a pair of shoes and charges stuff quite literally on the fly. The energy you create while walking is sent to a belt-looped charger. That energy can then be used for, in theory, whatever you want. Now we can not only feel like hamsters on a wheel but actually do the work of a hamster on a wheel. Life is beautiful.
The initial design of the PediPower is rather cumbersome, the creators agree. However, they say, that will be refine in future iterations to make the device smaller and lighter. Soon you’ll be walking all over the place without even realizing you have it on. Then you can play with your iPad for an extra few minutes on the cheap. It’s just a working prototype for now so you can’t walk into your local Foot Locker and pick this nifty gizmo up(yet.) Check out a video below.
