Charge Yourself: Solar-Powered Charging Stations To Recharge Our Phones And Minds

By Maya Yarowsky, NoCamels September 21, 2014 2 minutes

Charge Yourself. Courtesy of Bezalel Industrial Design

Smartphones are an integral part of our modern lives, but few things are more annoying than realizing you are about to run out of battery. This predicament is especially distressing when you are on the run between meetings, and barely have a minute to eat your lunch, let alone charge your phone.

Charge Yourself. Courtesy of Bezalel Industrial Design

One industrial design student wants to slow down our busy lives with a fun urban design that will recharge our phone and minds, simultaneously. Charge Yourself is the final project created by Bezalel Academy of the Arts student Tal Bahar that functions as a shady bench and solar-powered phone charging station in the heart of an urban jungle.

Chasing after the charge

Ensuring that we have enough battery to make it through the day is a modern day worry that Bahar believes causes a lot of unnecessary stress. So why not kill two birds with one stone and create a design that gives our phones and ourselves a much needed break? The bench-like structure that Bahar came up with has three shaded single wooden seats, each with their own charging surface and phone holder. Each charging surface is powered by solar panels on the metal shade overhang and is able to boost the battery of any mobile device (so no more scrounging around for the right charger). In addition, for those who really can’t live an unconnected minute, there is an extendable phone holder that simultaneously charges your phone and allows you to sort through emails or message a friend.

While Bahar’s Charge Yourself sounds like the perfect solution to our modern day woes, many mobile devices are not yet programmed to wirelessly charge, so it may be some time before we can rest and regenerate on our local boulevard. However, Bahar’s idea is a move in the right direction as Starbucks recently moved to install Israeli tech-powered Duracell PowerMat wireless charging stations in some of its US shops. Mostly, Charge Yourself is an important reminder to the work-until-we-drop generation to take a moment to ourselves every so often, and not just to charge our phones.