Off-Grid Grooming is a Little Easier with Piranha Dynamo Wind-Up Shaver
by Jaymi Heimbuch, San Francisco, California on 10.14.08
Wind up gadgets are typically silly because they require a lot of work for a little output - usually more than the average person is willing to put in. However, there are some ideas that still deserve a nod. Such is the Piranha Dynamo shaver.
The Piranha’s Lithium Ion battery is recharged by winding it up. So say you're camping and want to groom while off grid. You're already on a roll from winding up your LED camping light, so you just wind, wind, wind, and shave away. It does have an AC charger, if you don’t feel like putting out the effort, but why bother – it’s a great excuse for a mini morning workout.
It offers a pretty fair input-output trade off, too. About one minute of winding yields about 1.2 minutes of shaving. If the battery is fully charged, you get a little over 60 minutes of shave time. Not too shabby.
Via Ecotopia
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Gadgetry gone wild.
What a waste. There have been wind up shavers that use a mainspring like a mechanical watch for years, since at least the 1950s.
But why bother? Use a good old safety razor with a quality double edge blade and you'll get a smooth cheap shave. No winding, not batteries, no AC adapter needed.
Hmmm in my opinion a useless gadget, if you are abroad you have to shave yourself with a machete ;D
It also suffers from the same issue as most crank electronics, it has an internal battery. Batteries don't last forever so figure in replacement batteries every few years, which in reality won't happen because it will be easier to just toss the device and buy a new one so its just as wasteful as any other eletric razor.
Make a decent quality AA powered one that will run from 1.2v NiMH and I'll buy it. I have NiMH AA batteries that are approaching 10 years old and still in use.
The link from my name is a shaver that uses a flywheel instead of a battery. One hard pull on a cord (like a lawnmover cord) and you get a minute or so of shaving. Much better than charging for a minuted to get a minute of shaving, and there's no battery to wear out. I have one I've been using for years--they used to be more widely available.
Why would we be interested in the price?
I'm going to have to search around. An easy to charge shaver would be wonderful for either field training or for my deplopyment.