Zap&Go is a reserve power supply for smartphones and other USB charged devices, that can replenish itself rapidly so you can continue to recharge your phone while traveling. It does this by incorporating a cutting edge graphene supercapacitor and is currently seeking crowdfunding through Indiegogo.
Other portable power sources (such as the JUMP charger that we previously featured on Homeli) tend to work with chemical lithium ion batteries, much like those in our phones, so that they themselves recharge at a similarly slow rate. This is a real nuisance if you are in a rush and forgot to recharge both, but Zap&Go differentiates itself from standard reserve batteries by incorporating a graphene supercapacitor for storing power instead.
Capacitors work in a fundamentally different way to chemical batteries, by quickly applying opposing electrical charges to two ultra-thin graphene sheets to create a potential. These two sheets are rolled up, but insulated from each other, in the cylindrical casing you see in Zap&Go — the + sign in the Zap&Go logo actually being the electrical diagram symbol for a capacitor. This infographic perhaps explains how Zap&Go works more elegantly than I can:
Note that Zap&Go isn’t a charger that can fully charge a phone in 5 minutes, more that Zap&Go is a reserve battery that can recharge itself in 5 minutes at a power outlet. This therefor allows you to quickly top it up, and then continue to recharge your phone at its normal speed on the go. The alternative of this would mean being effectively tied to a power outlet with your phone for a number of hours, which could cause frustrating delays for traveling businesspeople.
I travel extensively on business, and my smart phone is an essential tool to do my job. But wherever I go in the world I am always seeing people sat down by wall plugs trying to charge their phones.Stephen Voller, Inventor of Zap&Go
The cylindrical casing of Zap&Go is designed for travel, with standard electrical outlet pins that retract back into the device, and several specially designed international adaptors that simply clip on. The team claim that a Zap&Go device after a 5 minute charge will be able to fully recharge an iPhone 5S and Amazon Kindle, as well as 75% of a Samsung Galaxy S5 and 50% of an iPad Air.
Zap&Go has already smashed its Indiegogo goal with 32 days left to go, so if you want one of your own, simply pledge $99 on the campaign and save $50 on the future retail price.
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