17 Nov 16
Originally posted by twhiteheadYes, I saw that report, brilliant girl. I was thinking about stuff that takes microwatts or milliwatts like watches or blood pressure, glucouse readers and the like. Clearly you are not going to get watts out of such devices, only milliwatts. I like the idea for a watch since I have had experience with both solar powered watches which works fine as long as you subject the watch to light but on your wrist you are not going to get much light to harvest and so it dies after a few months like that unless you physically take off the watch and set it out in the sun for a few hours.
So basically a thermocouple and capacitor in one. Of course they are far from the first to think of using human body heat to power devices.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/ann-makosinski-s-new-invention-a-body-heat-powered-headlamp-1.2678576
Or just battery power but the one I use (casio) has a 60 kilohertz reciever inside which picks up the time signal from Fort Collins Colorado and I am sure it takes quite a bit more energy to run 24/7 than the rest of the electronics in the watch, still milliwatts but the battery dies in under 2 years and much less in my experience. Human body heat to power such a device would mean you just wear it and get power renewable.
18 Nov 16
Originally posted by twhiteheadOf course, been around forever but the thermoelectric converter would be cheaper, no moving parts, so no machining costs.
With a watch, the obvious solution is mechanical movement devices (and they were invented in 1923).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_watch
20 Nov 16
Originally posted by sonhouseA capacitor that works by stuffing it with food would, you know, cut out the middle man.
https://techxplore.com/news/2016-11-supercapacitor-human-body.html
Wearable electronics, watches, heart/blood pressure monitors can be run as long as someone is wearing these things.