Startup Charge Me, part of the Near Telecom group of companies in the United Kingdom, was founded just last year by entrepreneurs from the mobile telecom and manufacturing industries for the purpose of addressing a growing mobile power problem. The company says its first product, the CM1 Recharge Kiosk, is designed to promote wireless operator and handset manufacturer brands while enhancing the experience of the mobile subscriber. Additional products are in development.

The cylindrical kiosk, measuring about 5 feet tall and 24 inches in depth, features 12 padded bays that allow users of many of today’s popular handsets and PDAs to plug in and receive a power boost. It also can be built to incorporate advertising concepts and signage.

“It’s quite simple. Public power charging has never properly been addressed with a product,” Charge Me director Dr. Janko Mrsic-Flogel said in a conversation with NewsFactor. “The Charge Me CM1 kiosk allows travelers and passersby to recharge their mobile devices when they are low on power or have run out of juice entirely.”

Power Struggle

There is a growing awareness in the wireless industry that robust applications like mobile gaming and MMS (multimedia messaging service) are creating a power crisis. Talk time and standby time are still the standards handset manufacturers use to gauge battery endurance — but at the same time, they are touting their multimedia-optimized screens and polyphonic sound capabilities. It is a safe bet that game time falls far short of talk time.

The more time subscribers put into hunting invaders from outer space, viewing e-mail attachments and monitoring the latest swings in their investment portfolios, the more likely it is that they will put themselves at risk of running their devices down or out. Smartphones, many of which add the full functionality of PDAs and MP3 players, are still at the mercy of one onboard power source.

Running Behind

Battery technology and power engineering always seem to be a half generation behind the favorable applications of the day. Otherwise, electric cars would be more than just golf cart-size curiosities, and the battery displays at your local drug store would be getting smaller instead of taking up half an aisle.

“In general, trends are to increased power consumption, particularly video on 2.5G and 3G,” Aberdeen Group research director Russ Craig told NewsFactor. “The other thing that is happening is the use of non-volatile memory in cell phones and PDAs, so if the battery goes dead you don’t lose your data or phone numbers or ringtones.”  

Power to the People

Charge Me sees two types of venues for the CM1. In public transportation hubs and public gathering places, the CM1 will be a coin- or bill-operated vending machine that typically will dispense power boosts in 5- or 10-minute increments. In UK trials, a British pound (about US$1.50) bought a 10-minute charge.

The second type of venue will feature the CM1 in a corporate or complimentary retail setting. Businesses may find value in placing the Charge Me kiosk in convenient locations for their employees who are heavy mobile users, while retailers and hospitality managers may find that free charges lead to impulse buys of their primary products. After all, they will have a captive audience for at least 5 or 10 minutes.

Positive Reactions

“Charge Me expects positive reaction to its first installations in Q1 this year,” said Mrsic-Flogal. “Following the pilot installation findings, we aim to step up production and deploy nationwide (UK) with our pilot partners, such as Railtrack, which manage most of the main railway stations in England.”

Charge Me’s kiosk is designed to be accessible to a very broad range of users, who operate a variety of wireless devices. Currently, the 12 bays of the initial CM1 product can recharge more than 50 popular mobile phone and PDA models.

From Spare Batteries to Power Stations

Power solution vendors are attacking the problem from different angles. For example, Aberdeen’s Craig mentioned two heavily funded startups, MobileWise and Splashpower, that are designing power transfer stations. They look like desktop pads and can charge devices just by being in contact with them.

Simpler strategies are being employed by companies like IST, whose Sidewinder product is a manual charger that can give up to 5 minutes of emergency power when its rotary crank is turned for 2 minutes. And you can also find PDA solar panels on the market, along with more traditional backups like spare batteries and universal AC adapters.

The CM1 will be charging into dozens of UK locations early this year, with an elegant and user-friendly design that is also an advertising trojan horse for its owner. If today’s wireless multimedia and mobile data applications really catch on, you may find yourself looking for a kiosk soon.