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Hydrogen Fuel Cell Phone Charger 'Upp' Launches in UK Apple Stores

good tech...

But if its not any faster charger, what's the real point?? A mofie case would be smaller. But not last as long.

You can't win em all....

unless u stick with a charger, but then you'll be grounded to your closest AC while u charge.. but unless u won't need to get it replaced, unless it dies...

oh well... things could be worse :rolleyes:
 
zigziggityzoo said:
Why does it have to be plugged in? I don't understand why I'd need BOTH exchanging the cartridges AND plugging the device in to use it.
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Reading the article, there is no need to plug it in before using for the first time, it will just be able to charge longer if you pre-charge it before slipping in the cartridge. Apparently there is a battery in the charger that the fuel cell actually charges that then charges your iDevice. That makes sense to me, as having to charge the battery would suck the available power down from the fuel cell a lot faster.
 
Stupid

I have one that is 15000 Mha and will charge my phone literally 3-4 times before I need to recharge it. and it doesn't cost me a thing to charge it, except a tiny bit of electricity. $9 to recharge it? LOL I am shocked Apple hasn't made this the only way to charge your phone yet...
 
PinkyMacGodess said:
Reading the article, there is no need to plug it in before using for the first time, it will just be able to charge longer if you pre-charge it before slipping in the cartridge. Apparently there is a battery in the charger that the fuel cell actually charges that then charges your iDevice. That makes sense to me, as having to charge the battery would suck the available power down from the fuel cell a lot faster.
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And that's the problem... u need to remember to pre-charge if u want to make it at longer

But the convenience is there afterwards
 
Dumb

?? Whats the point of this if you have to get a refill pack/ Can't they figure out how to extract it from the ether.
 
TallManNY said:
A very high capacity external battery costs $40 - $60 and assuming you judiciously use airplane mode and don't use it as a TV every night should keep your iphone going for a week. Buy two of those and you will have still spent less and have less to carry and you can go crazy with your iphone over a week camping trip and you won't run out.
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The hydrogen one seems to be fairly beefy though in terms of power to cost ratio, especially with how much you get from it. Buying one of these might be real useful if you have multiple devices to charge, rather than getting a whole bunch of external batteries.

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doctor-don said:
Obviously, none of the people making comments has ever been on an extended camping trip.

I can recall being away from all technology while canoeing through the Okefenokee Swamp for several days. That was prior to the cell phone / smart phone, and no service would have been available there - since it isn't there today.

Same goes for a mountain climbing expedition. Sailing around the world might be another matter since solar power is probably a better choice there.
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Yep. This isn't a device for people who drive to work where they have power outlets. I'm really tempted to get one of these for when I go hiking with my friends. I've heard that it works good in low temperatures too which would be really useful for me (hike over the Carpathians once every 6 months).
 
Why would anyone do this when you can buy one of those $30 lithium-ion batteries that has usb ports to charge your phone? They even have some with a solar panel built in to charge over time.
 
theROZ said:
?? Whats the point of this if you have to get a refill pack/ Can't they figure out how to extract it from the ether.
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There isn't enough 'natural gas' in the 'ether'-nets. Just simulated hot air...

They could make a power source out of ether, but I think that would start a whole new breed of 'whippets'...
 
rGiskard said:
DOA.

For the same money, one could buy several Li-ion battery packs and charge his devices for years before needing any replacement packs. Li-ion cells are very light so they're good for backpacking and camping as well.

I must admit though that this Upp could make a killer IED in the right hands.
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Ya had to spoil it for us didn't you.. Now everyone will be doing that.
 
The Xiaomi Powerbank 10400mAh is selling at ~USD11/~GBP7.3 in Hong Kong and China (and online) and you can recharge it at miniscule electricity costs for few years until the batteries inside (four 18250 LG batteries with Texas instruments charging management components) wear out. :rolleyes:
 
Gaspode67 said:
It's not quite like that. It's a) not a weekly fee, and b) it doesn't stop working a week after you've bought it.

It's basically the same as an external battery pack, except instead of charging that pack from the wall, you buy a cartridge that contains enough energy in it to charge a "nominal" device" for normal use continuously for a week. If you use it as a back-up for when you are, say, out camping, at a festival, going mountain-biking through the National Parks, etc, not near a handy mains socket, the cartridge will last a lot longer. That energy isn't going anywhere! If you're using your phone as a sat-nav through the day, having a back-up that is not reliant on having a mains socket isn't stupid, it's common sense.

The £5.95 per cartridge isn't bad. It's the initial price that needs to come down to get wider adoption, but can only happen over time as this sort of thing becomes more widespread. The idea of being able to hand in your old cartridges for new will also help wo keep the costs down, as they'll be able to re-charge them and put them back into the supply chain again and again.
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Being able to go days in the bush with no power (even carry 2) is a good use case and the price isn't bad. You could run a laptop off this (playing call of duty ;-) for awhile... (sic).

Outdoor equipment is pretty pricey, so this is actually a bargain compared to all the other equipment. When I go in the Himalayas I have had to carry a big weight in lithium batteries to last me for the many days. Power density seems much higher than lithium batteries.
 
steve knight said:
that was said about cars and most other new things. why do something new when the old thing works so well. was the first iPhone great compared to the 6?
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Hydrogen is a terrible idea. It was basically an oil industry red herring, an attempt to sell hydrogen (manufactured from oil and coal) to be put into cars that were even less efficient than gasoline powered cars.

Hydrogen was the dumb new idea that didn't make it, like gas-powered radios and HD-DVD. Lithium Ion cars won, and lithium ion continues to win in mobile.

Toshiba (who, coincidentally, created HD-DVD) experimented with hydrogen powered laptops back in 2006. It was dumb and it didn't work.

I just bought a 16,000maH external battery for $29. It can easily keep my iPhone 6+ going for a week. I can squeeze out two days on a single charge of the internal 3000mah battery. The external pack can recharge it around 4 times, which allows for a total of 10 days of moderate use or 5-7 days of heavy use.
 
joltball said:
Its a hydrogen fuel cell so its not meant for your daily commuting or at work place. The primary intention is when you stuck up at places where you cannot find wall outlet and but still need a power source to operate. Like outdoor photography, or a long trail run.

And for people who are complaining about the cost of recharge, its a refill, you are not buying a cartridge again. Read the article completely before jumping up like baboons on LSD.

It gives a week's worth of charge. A week. Try getting that with a 16000mah battery pack !!

And about recharging the fuel cell, you will need to do that initially inorder for the fuel cell itself to operate and generate power. Though not specified, my guess is its use the power generated from there on to charge the device as well as operate the fuel cell.

Hissing noise - Its an effing fuel cell !! where do you think it has to vent out the water vapor. A worm hole ??
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This fuel cell setup yields 25Wh, weighs over 600g, and costs £150. A 16000mAh battery pack is 60Wh, weighs 300g, and costs $40. To recharge it, simply find the nearest wall socket. At the most, it'll cost a few cents to recharge. The fuel cell has to be exchanged at specific locations for a cost of £6!

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Keirasplace said:
Being able to go days in the bush with no power (even carry 2) is a good use case and the price isn't bad. You could run a laptop off this (playing call of duty ;-) for awhile... (sic).

Outdoor equipment is pretty pricey, so this is actually a bargain compared to all the other equipment. When I go in the Himalayas I have had to carry a big weight in lithium batteries to last me for the many days. Power density seems much higher than lithium batteries.
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It's only 5V - you can't run your laptop off it! But for a little less money you can buy an external lithium battery with about twice the weight but 6 times the power capacity! It goes up to ~20V and it will run your laptop! The power to weight ratio with this fuel cell is actually much worse.
 
Dimwhit said:
So you're paying $9/week for a device that can charge your phone? Am I understanding that right? If so, that seems colossally stupid.
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Correct...if you don't charge your device during the weekend...otherwise it's gonna cost even more...:eek:
 
Technology, meet the luddites of macrumors

I am amazed by the reactionary, belligerent, criticism that resulted from announcing an interesting product. This charger uses hydrogen to create electricity to charge your phone. The efficiency comes from how light hydrogen is as a fuel, so packing lots of hydrogen would be a lot lighter than packing a lot of lithium batteries. It would also retain full power after being stored for a year, unlike a lithium battery.

This is not for everyone, the technology is barely competing with common batteries at the moment even in its optimal use cases. But the vitriolic reaction from the commenters on a technology-centric forum makes me really sad. The technology still has a lot of maturing to do, but apparently that's the easy part compared to making people understand what a fuel cell is and how it is different from a battery. ... and it would make a terrible bomb. When someone talks about hydrogen bombs, this is not the hydrogen reaction they're talking about.
 
Well

The use case for this opposed to a 16,000 external battery that can charge your phone for a week seems really small. I'm impressed with the folks on here who do some major hiking. But I wonder how much device usage they use during these hikes. Those lithium ion batteries keep getting larger and cheaper. I guess if you need to power an iPad or two, then this thing might make sense. Though I'm a little unclear how much juice it actually stores. Describing things like "running your device for a week" isn't very helpful.
 
coffeemadmanUK said:
Not entirely.

http://www.hydrogenlondon.org/projects/london-hydrogen-bus-project/

London has had hydrogen buses for three or four years now. Emitting nothing but water into the air.

The technology has room to improve no doubt, but that's no different to any other technology.

To suggest it's pointless is silly - it's got a point; it just isn't perfected yet.
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But those buses are stupid. They are a waste of money and they are worse for the environment than gasoline buses. The ideal system is overhead power lines to power the buses as they drive around like San Francisco does. Other cities have hybrid buses where overhead lines are impractical.

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TallManNY said:
The use case for this opposed to a 16,000 external battery that can charge your phone for a week seems really small. I'm impressed with the folks on here who do some major hiking. But I wonder how much device usage they use during these hikes. Those lithium ion batteries keep getting larger and cheaper. I guess if you need to power an iPad or two, then this thing might make sense. Though I'm a little unclear how much juice it actually stores. Describing things like "running your device for a week" isn't very helpful.
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If you hike that much, you are much better off with a solar panel that attaches to your backpack. Or just pack a second 16000mah battery.
 
aberrero said:
But those buses are stupid. They are a waste of money and they are worse for the environment than gasoline buses. The ideal system is overhead power lines to power the buses as they drive around like San Francisco does. Other cities have hybrid buses where overhead lines are impractical.

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If you hike that much, you are much better off with a solar panel that attaches to your backpack. Or just pack a second 16000mah battery.
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How are they worse than regular buses? Sure they are expensive but then so was the first mobile phone, the first car, the first plane... do you really expect the first instances of technology to be cheap?
 
coffeemadmanUK said:
How are they worse than regular buses? Sure they are expensive but then so was the first mobile phone, the first car, the first plane... do you really expect the first instances of technology to be cheap?
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Most hydrogen today is made through coal gassification. It releases a bunch of CO2 and burns dirtier than oil.

You can alsmo make hydrogen through electricity, but that is also going to be originally made from fossil fuels. But whereas recharging a battery is 90% efficient or more, turning electricity into hydrogen is at best 40% efficient, so you waste 60% of the energy relative to a battery powered bus, and the whole process ends up being less efficient than just burning the oil in the bus to begin with.

Hydrogen has a niche use, most likely as a range extender for battery electric cars, but it is really not a good replacement for either gasoline or batteries. It would make more sense if it was possible to manufacture hydrogen efficiently, but that doesn't seem like it will happen in the forseeable future (even if we're being optimistic).
 
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