Dahon FreeCharge Charges USB Connected Devices By Pedal Power

When you find yourself out, going places and doing your day-to-day routines, do you ever find that your battery life on all your tech gadgets just doesn't seem to be cutting it? Maybe you wish you could have gotten an extra hour, thirty minutes, or even a handful of minutes just to get something done and out of the way. It looks like your worries are about to take a step to the wayside. Well, as long as you ride a bike.

Dahon, a company known for making folding bikes, has created what they're calling the BioLogic FreeCharge, an incredibly useful gadget that they showed off at Eurobike this year. The FreeCharge is a small, silicone-encased box which hooks up to your bike's generator hub, and then subsequently siphons off power for charging the devices you plug into it. The unit itself is built around a battery, and some generic circuitry for both storing electricity, and smooth out the spikes and dips in the FreeCharge's output.

You can plug in any device that uses a standard USB connection, and that means iPhones, iPods, some cell phones, and other gadgets. As you pedal, and the FreeCharge gains juice, it will subsequently charge your connected device. Dahon says that a full charge will be reached at around three hours, but let's face it, this is just to get your stuff functioning. Unless you plan on riding your bike long distances, as we're sure this gadget is mostly tuned for, then it could potentially keep your device running indefinitely. As long as it's connected, of course. Dahon says the BioLogic FreeCharge will be available in March of 2010, for $100.

[via Wired]