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Lightweight, Plug-and-Play Portable Wind Turbines are Coming

Free energy that fits in a bag, courtesy of Janulus

By Rain Noe - September 25, 2015

in Tech

This is astonishing. The guys over at sustainable product company Janulus have developed a portable, 12-inch, 1.5-pound wind turbine that can suck energy out of the air and charge your iPhone—three to four times over.

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On the UI front, there isn't a lot of fuss: You unfurl the blades (increasing the device's height to 35 inches), set it on the ground and turn it "on." With the wind charging the internal battery, you simply plug directly into it.

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While this would be a godsend for campers or those living in developing nations, Janulus is thinking even bigger. In addition to the Trinity 50, the dimunitive unit described in the paragraph above, they've also developed the Trinity 400, 1000 and 2500, each getting larger and able to store more juice.

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Amazingly, the 1000 and 2500--which weigh just 17.6 and 42 pounds, respectively--can be used to help power your home, with no technological prowess required on the user's part: One simply plugs the device into an ordinary socket, and the unit feeds the juice right into the lines! Alternatively, you can plug it right into your Tesla:

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Here's the pitch video for their Kickstarter campaign:

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Demand is apparently strong, as the Trinity line has already been funded. At press time it was at $83,000 on a $50,000 goal with 30 days left to pledge. Units are expected to begin shipping in April of next year. Click here to read the tech specs and capacities of the different units.

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Sam Ley

9 years ago

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The small portable units look handy, but be very cautious about their claims on the larger units. That type of interconnection to the grid is illegal just about everywhere in the world right now (and changes to grid regulation is measured in decades, not months). I'm starting to see a lot of slick little Kickstarter energy projects touting "grid tie through the outlet", and they just won't be able to deliver on that promise.

Take a look at the KS comments - there is one in there from Mike Bergey who is a literal pioneer in wind turbine design (though he is very modest in his post). The majority of turbines under 10kW in the world are Bergey turbines, and his thoughts and concerns about the design are important to note.

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Jinseok Hwang

9 years ago

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please check this design from frog design.

http://www.frogdesign.com/work/frog-revolver.html

such a bad copycat here.
please don't copy design.

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Greg Blonder

9 years ago

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The power levels claimed are extraordinarily high, unless measured in VERY strong winds. Actual power will be much lower, as power output depends on the velocity to the third. In other words, a 12 mph wind has 27 times more power than a 4 mph wind. I fear, like all small wind turbines, this is a toy.

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Joshua Bell

9 years ago

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Yeah, I love the idea of stuff like this. I own a portable solar panel and it's the greatest thing since sliced bread for mobile stuff when camping. I live in Colorado and a little wind generator would be the business. However, they make a big deal about how many times you can charge a device off the battery, but seem to dance around how long it takes that battery to charge. I understand results may vary, and free energy is free energy, but are talking hours or days?

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Mark Thomas

9 years ago

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As something like a camping phone charger it seems very cool.

But people often assume that because one can "suck energy out of the air", it's inexpensive. But in fact it's quite costly to suck energy out of the air. It's almost impossible to make wind power price competitive with alternative sources at less than utility-scale turbines (think 100' blades) . On a per-watt price basis, the small unit is producing energy at something like 500x what it costs to plug your phone into the wall. But when you're camping there's no wall plugs, so cost per watt isn't relevant.

And the picture of device in the yard next to the Tesla is 100% marketing BS. It's not even remotely feasible to get adequate wind tucked into a yard like that. Frankly, I would say that photo crosses the line from marketing BS to flagrant misrepresentation.

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