Jiffy is a wind-up gadget for emergency phone charging

You forgot to charge your phone last night, you’ve used it a lot already today, and now it’s running on fumes. We’ve all been there. A drained phone battery is sad but usually isn’t the end of the world. You’ll just have to miss out on Neko Atsume until you get home. But what if it’s an emergency? You might need to check maps to find your way home or send a text for someone to pick you up. What if you just need a bit more battery to get a few things done? That’s what Jiffy is for.

Wind-up chargers aren’t new but Jiffy looks to bring some great features and specs to the table making it a practical gadget for emergencies. Jiffy is a small box that you can wind up to charge multiple devices at once. The kinetic energy from your winding is transformed into electricity by tiny motors that lets you power up to 6 smartphones at once. It also uses Quick Charge 2.0, meaning your devices charge as quickly as possible with such a device.

A lot of the information available about real-world use talks about keeping your phone charged just that bit longer so you can make an emergency call or check maps before losing power. But what if your phone runs out of battery entirely? The creators were asked how long it would take to charge a smartphone from completely flat to enough to do something useful:

“To give you an example, a battery with 1100 mAh would charge to 10% in about 90 seconds. The iPhone 6 is powered by a 1810 mAh battery, so you would get to about 10% in 2 minutes and 30 seconds. That should be enough to finish off any tasks you need to do with your phone.”

We were imagining it would take forever to charge a phone by any considerable amount but a couple of minutes to get from flat to 10% is pretty good and could be amazing in an emergency. Jiffy is the type of charger you wouldn’t use often but could sit at the bottom of your bag for that rare emergency when you’ve hit 0%. It’s not going to replace an extra battery but as a totally clean, environmentally friendly emergency energy source it’s a great idea. And it’s very cheap.

Jiffy is raising funds on Kickstarter. To get your own Jiffy, you can back the campaign for just €25 (£19.46) plus shipping for €1 (£0.78). There are also a couple of €5 (£3.89) backing options that give you a light designed for Jiffy or a multi-USB cable for charging several different devices at once. Shipping is to begin in July 2016 so backers should expect their rewards by August.

We don’t see Jiffy or similar eco-friendly gadgets replacing large power banks but it would be reassuring to know that you can get an extra 10% of battery in a couple of minutes even if you’re in the middle of a jungle or at sea.

Main image © Valentin Nicula