Vignesh Ramachandran

You could have all the apps in the world to prepare you for survival when disaster strikes — flashlight, emergency contacts, GPS and first aid tips — but they’ll be entirely useless when you run out of battery juice on your phone.

If you’re camping in the boondocks or preparing a disaster survival kit, you might want to consider a low-tech emergency smartphone charger. Seattle-based SOS Ready has designed the pocket-sized “SOSCharger,” which is powered by you. With the gadget’s built-in generator, all you do is connect to your smartphone via USB connection and hand-crank the handle. The SOSCharger has a 1,500 mAh Lithium Polymer battery, and depending on your phone and network, the company claims three to five minutes of winding will translate to five to 12 minutes of talk time.

The iPod Classic-sized charger also features charge and battery level indicators.
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SOS Ready premiered the SOSCharger at CES this year and their prototype is tested and complete. The company is hoping to raise $27,000 on Kickstarter to take the charger to full production, with shipping targeted for this summer. With 45 days left to go for the Kickstarter campaign, backers have pledged $16,452, as of Monday evening. Backers who pledge at least $25 will be among the first to receive the charger.

Solar chargers are also a low-tech charging option, but on its Kickstarter page, SOS Ready points out their perceived flaw in an emergency situation: “Many current solar solutions also don’t collect enough light to work effectively and light is not always available in an emergency.”

During 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, photos captured New Yorkers gathering around crowded power strips, finding desperate means to juice their devices.

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