With smartphones today a necessity for everyday functioning, dying battery problems especially when outdoors remains unaddressed. To make work-related calls, to stay connected with a nanny giving care to kids at home, and also to receive alerts for an ailing family member in the hospital, smartphones help to do it all irrespective of the location.
However, dying phone battery, at a time, when the smartphone needs to be free of operational disruptions is annoying. The repercussions of this can be detrimental.
In this space, to address dying battery problems, ChargedUp is some ray of hope. The U.K. based startup works on the lines of the bike sharing model well received.
Tale of Dying Smartphone Battery of one Founder birthed ChargedUp
The founding of ChargedUp has a story behind from its founders. Hugo Tilmouth, one of the founders was at Lord’s Cricket ground in London. He was waiting a call for the last round of a job interview, At this instant, his phone started running low on battery. In the flux, the only way was to reach home the earliest. Not thinking left or right, he bought a power bank and rode a Boris Bike to get home. This prodded the question, “why not leverage the flexibility of a sharing economy to charge phones”?
To make it happen, the first step was to create multiple distribution points at places where people spend major part of their day. This includes bars, cafes, and restaurants that are usually hangout places for individuals.
Regarding the functionality, users in the program need to use an app to locate the nearest station. Using digital activation, the user unlocks a sharable power bank, and return it to any station in the network. The algorithm records up time for payment purpose.
