Wearables Future Could Include Body Heat-Based Charging

One aspect of wearable technology that has been a central concern is battery life — finding the comfortable mixture of size and longevity, and deciding on the ideal way to charge a device. In the future, that issue could be laid to rest with the use of flexible patches that charge batteries using body heat.

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology researchers created a flexible and thin patch that does just this, converting the heat from one's body into electricity to power a wearable device. The uses for it are obvious, and could one day eliminate the need for manual charging, wireless or otherwise.

Glass fibers are the main component in the charger, being woven together to make a sheet. A variety of pastes are then said to be used with the temperature differential between one's skin temp and the ambient temperature, ultimately converting the body heat into electricity.

The benefits could extent beyond the use of wearable technology, as well, harvesting the lost heat from all sorts of devices, ranging from cars to machinery and possibly even city structures, converting it back into usable electricity to keep buildings and such powered.

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SOURCE: GigaOm