gear you have to get!

I'm parsing my email this slooooooow saturday and I see this add from REI; "Backpacking gear so innovative, you"ll want to upgrade!" Clever people! Seriously, because I looked. One thing did interest me was the Biolite Camp stove that uses wood to cook and generate electricity to charge your gizmos. I thought cool...I'll look. Weighs over 2 pounds (which is why I put it here instead of the lite gear forum!)...but still interesting.

Biolite stove

Cleaver idea. Would be nice if it weighed less than 1 pound.

The reviews I've seen were not very impressed--too heavy, too much fuel needed, not enough electricity produced, not environmentally friendly.

Andrew Skurka (he admits he hasn't used ...nd weight-wise)

Philip Werner of "Section Hiker"--he tested the stove. "...it took me 2 hours of burning wood in the BioLite to bring a empty Samsung GalaxyS Smartphone battery up to 50% power. The stove only holds a small amount of fuel and I had to constantly add more wood to the fire to keep the heat level high enough to keep it charging."

Even Backpacker Magazine didn't seem very enthusiastic. "After burning for five to 15 minutes (again, depending on the ambient conditions and the quality of wood) with the help of the integrated fan, the indicator light turns green and you’re ready to plug into the USB port. Don’t expect to get a full charge on your iPhone in record time, but it’s still pretty miraculous. After 37 minutes, one tester’s iPhone netted a 13-percent increase in power..." In other words, you have to do far more burning than is required to cook your food, especially if all you do is boil water.

I'm sure there are favorable reviews out there, but these were the first three I picked up on google that would load this morning. (I have no idea why some sites don't want to load today, unless Saturday morning is when they're down for maintenance. )

Relying on this stove would leave a lot of people with no way to charge their gadgets when there are fire bans all over the western states, as happened last summer and seems likely to happen this coming summer.

My stove plus a large isobutane canister weighs 15 oz. The Biolite stove weighs 34 oz. You can carry a lot of extra batteries for 19 oz. (10 AA's) and not have to burn anything!

Personally, I'd rather leave the rechargeable gadgets at home--I go out in the wilds to get away from that stuff! YMMV, of course.

OM, those all sound like glowing recommendations to me (sarcastic emoticon). I was intriqued by the concept of it, although I would never want to take it on a backpacking trip. Like you, I don't take anything with batteries 'cept the headlamp. The whole thing seems a bit ironic to me actually; "the gear you have to get"...I guess for somebody ...

btw, fair amount of work you did with that post OM. Thanks.

Hefted one at the store last weekend and oof, big and heavy. Heck of a concept, but perhaps better configured as a gizmo to go between burner and cookpot on the stove of your choice.

You could probably build a poop-powered flashlight, too, but I'd rather discuss design alternatives around the campfire over brandy, than actually lug one.

Cheers,

Rick! You are on to the NEXT big thing! A poop powered flashlight. I like it. It could be required equipment in 10 years in some parks. big thing...get it... (rimshot please)

Exactly my thought, OM: I don't want to recharge stuff; I don't even want stuff with me I have to recharge!