Concept – The Rechargeable USB Lighter
November 4th, 2007
Check out this flamless USB Lighter from designer Nathan Gabriele.
In lieu of lighter fluid and a flint, this lighter uses resistance coils to create heat. It’s the same technology found in car lighters. The small rechargeable battery cell powering the coil can be recharged via USB. On top of that, there’s some flash memory in there to store files. Damn, might as well give it a couple swiss blades and a nose hair trimmer to complete the package.
I love the concept of this USB lighter, lets hope they make something like this.
via Yanko Design
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Hi Nicole
I am afraid it is just a concept at the moment
Nice and creative concept. But useful? I am not sure about that. My opinion though.
A lighter, a flash drive…. not useful? Your mom isn’t useful. Anyone that works with flash drives and smokes is in heaven.
Yes, but it’s only good if you smoke cigarettes. You wouldn’t be able to light a pipe with this, nor properly light a cigar. Forget smoking pot.
@Robert
Why not just take the long way? Light something with this, such as paper or a small light piece of wood, and use that to light whatever it is that it can’t reach. Its roundabout I know, but I see 40 or 50 usb ports every day, and only one can of butane.
Well in my country people who use flash drives don’t smoke. (Usually if not all the time)
@swift: In that case, it will introduce more smokers to USB flash drives. Win/win.
Looks like it’s a great start to an atomizer.
that’s actually pretty cool, I must admit.
Nice idea, BUT I dont like the idea of pushing down the area that gets hot to reveal the USB, nor having to open and “arm” the lighter to reveal the USB…..
Not sure how you would design round that, but I can see burnt fingers from that. I would Maybe re-think the exposing the USB bit of it? I could make some guesses at it, but I will leave that up to you!!
Its only a concept, and I doubt it will even work.
They compare it to a cigarette lighter found in cars, which are powered by a massive battery with a lot of amperage. Such a small battery could probably never deliver enough power to make it hot enough to actually light something, and if it did, it would probably run out of power after just one use.
It’s a nice idea, but you can never have a battery small enough to fit in there and be able to produce the required power to make something hot (preferably instantly) enough to light a smoke..
Besides, seems the idea is patentated http://www.freshpatents.com/Battery-powered-cigarette-lighter-and-process-for-using-the-same-dt20070222ptan20070042305.php
These are the reasons such thing does not exist yet, otherwise they would have made one like 30 years ago (ok, using other means than USB to charge, but you get my drift)
That would be unreal, cant wait ta see if this actually happens!!
here you can find the original, patented USB Lighter:
http://www.memlite.com (128MB – 4GB) in different colours…
Hey Memlite thats pretty cool
You mention the original patented USB lighter, if you look at the article, the design is for a rechargeable lighter.
Maybe you guys over at Memlite should get together with the designer and see if you can come up with a rechargeable one, it would be great to see the above concept go into production.