Wednesday, 13 June 2012
Cell phone concept designs are often crazy yet cool. When concept phones are also eco-friendly, then their awesomeness rocks the charts. These 15 futuristic green gadgets are creatively cool concept cell phones and accessories that we’d love to see developed and on the mainstream market soon.
Wearable Solar-Powered Leaf Phone Charges on the Go
(image credits: Yanko Design)
Designers Seungkyun Woo and Junyi Heo were inspired by photosynthesis. The Leaf cell phone is a wearable bracelet phone that accumulates power from solar cells on its front panel. As a backup, it also can be recharged with electricity. The Leaf offers high-tech fashion and function, however its main objective is to “remind people that they can contribute to energy efficiency.”
Mechanical Mobile Spin Finger Phone
(image credits:ubergizmo)
Designer Mikhail Stawsky came up with the Mechanical Mobile, a concept cell phone that can be charged by spinning it around your finger. Touchscreen technology meets the Wild West? This design might be for the modern day cowboy. Like gunslingers of old, the quickest draw to twirl and power their phone wins?
Biodegradable Grass Cell Phone
(image credits: inhabitat)
Je-Hyun Kim designed a cell phone meant to last only for as long as the length of its functional life cycle. The grassy casing on the Natural Year Phone concept will slowly dissolve, leaving the keypad and screen to be recycled. This biodegradable phone is a great idea, but you might want to avoid using it on a rainy day.
Mobile Script Phone
(image credits: Yanko Design)
Designer Aleksandr Mukomelov created a sleek, thin cell phone concept that sports two touch screens. One is a traditional screen and the second is a flexible OLED screen that stiffens when you unroll it. The Mobile Script phone has most any feature you might want, like internet access, documents on the go, games, communication, and mobility. Can it get any better? Oh yes. You don’t ever need to recharge this phone. The case is coated with a photo sensitive nano material that converts sunlight into energy.
Scrap Wood Phones
(image credits: dvice)
Touch Wood concept phones are made from cypress wood scraps. The protective coating allows these biodegradable phones to be waterproof, insect-proof, and mold-proof. Touch Wood phones have a touch screen and camera.
Kinetic Flexible OLED Cell Phone
(image credits: core77)
If you are a rabid texter, then this concept phone might be for you. Kyocera’s Eos folding concept phone “feeds off of our physical interaction with it, translating kinetic energy into an electric charge via an array of nano-scale piezoelectric generators. The more we interact with Eos, the more energy it creates – without using batteries.” The flexible OLED screen can fold to wallet-size, able to open and close with shape memory.
OLED Roll Phone
(image credits: coroflot)
Designer Tao Ma has created the world’s shortest roll-up phone. The display screen rolls up so the entire phone is about the size of film canister. The tiny keypad roll might prove challenging to keep from making fat finger typos. It does run on batteries but the OLED screen makes it eco-friendly.
Tenna
(image credits: Yanko Design)
Designer Yuree S. Lim created a screen-less phone that uses voice recognition-based UI. The 1.5 inch Tenna cell phone concept breaks down into a detachable ear piece and a USB mini port. Plug Tenna in and it transforms any gadget with a screen into a cell phone.
Motorola Origami
(image credits: core77)
Origami, a Motorola concept cell phone, is made of thin segmented “technostuff.” It “can be folded into different forms to serve different functions: phone, recording device, camera, and, presumably, a pointy paper crane.”
Coke Powered Phone
(image credits: treehugger)
Daizi Zheng designed a cell phone to run on Coke. Her design has the potential to operate three to four times longer on a single charge than conventional lithium batteries. She wrote, “The concept is using bio battery to replace the traditional battery to create a pollution free environment. Bio battery is an ecologically friendly energy generates electricity from carbohydrates (currently sugar) and utilizes enzymes as the catalyst. By using bio battery as the power source of the phone, it only needs a pack of sugary drink and it generates water and oxygen while the battery dies out.”
Finger Phone
(image credits: Yanko Design)
Do you talk with your hands? Then this concept phone may be for you. Finger Touching is a wearable mobile device for enhanced chatting. Excluding the thumb, each finger joint makes up 12 buttons for input.
Camera-Projector-Printer Phone
(image credits: Barakan Design)
Designer Hideo Kanbara created a phone that is truly full-featured and meant for multitasking. Much more than a cell phone, it also functions as a game controller, photo printer, and projector.
Sticker Cell Phone
(image credits: Yanko Design)
Designer Liu Hsiang-Ling considered that people place their phone close to a window to pick up better signal reception. The Sticker Phone has a solar panel on the back. The shape is slightly arched so the phone will stick via suction onto a window to charge.
Viber Burst Kinetic Energy Charger
(image credits: ecofriend)
Josh Pell developed a concept charger known as Viber Burst. It harnesses the power of motion to charge a cell phone. Viber Burst can be carried in your pocket, your purse, or even attached to your shoe. Once fully charged the device can dump all that energy into your cell phone’s battery in just two seconds.
Cell Phone Battery Concept Charges with a Flick of a Finger
(image credit: unplggd)
Designers Song Teaho and Hyejin Lee may not call this a “green” concept, but finger powered batteries are eco-friendly. If your cell phone is running low on battery power, you pull out the battery and spin it around your index finger. It will be recharged long enough to let you have a conversation or to get to a electrical charger. It would be great to see this developed to last longer.
