These shoes generate power with every step you take


Smartphones and wearable computers have become incredibly popular in recent years, but batteries can’t always keep pace with our ever-increasing demand for power. These personal electronics can just about do it all, but after a few hours of heavy usage, it’s time to recharge. Can we ever move past our addiction to the wall socket? Researchers in Germany have designed a tiny system embedded in a pair of shoes that effectively harvests the energy expended by the simple act of walking. With this system, you can actually power your own electronics as you walk around.

In the journal Smart Materials and Structures, Klevis Ylli and his team outline how they were able to use two different types of harvesters to capture significant amounts of energy from the swing of the foot and the strike of the heel. The first harvester accelerates magnets through a set of coils when the foot swings, and the second uses frequency up-conversion to trigger a spring-loaded magnetic circuit into resonance when the heel strikes the ground.



After significant testing with these prototype energy harvesters, the team found that they were able to consistently generate a few milliwatts with a relatively brisk walking pace. Those results are orders of magnitude away from powering a smartphone, but the research team believes that this tech will facilitate wearable low-powered sensors with no requirement for batteries.

Keep in mind, this implementation is still being improved. In the article, the research team notes that they are already hard at work developing improved harvesters that capture your energy more efficiently. Give this concept a few more generations of refinement, and it might just find its way into Nikes and Adidas across the globe. In fact, the researchers believe this technology can even help the elderly by automatically tying their shoes, so there are clearly ambitions beyond simply powering consumer electronics.

While this shoe-mounted generator is incredibly fascinating, it’s just the beginning for human-powered electronics. Why not take the self-winding watch concept to the next level, and power your smartwatch with your own movements? Perhaps researchers will even find a cheap and effective method of reclaiming all of our lost body heat. And suddenly, even our waste products become useful. So let’s join together, and take the first step towards the future of a human-powered world.