5 Ways to Use Your Body as a Charger

Devices that collect data about our bodies need power, but they also might need to be very small or even ingestible. To avoid including batteries in these cases, researchers are looking for ways to harvest energy from the body itself.

Hosted by: Michael Aranda

----------
----------
Huge thanks go to the following Patreon supporters for helping us keep SciShow free for everyone forever:

Dr. Melvin Sanicas, Sam Lutfi, Bryan Cloer, Christoph Schwanke, Kevin Bealer, Jacob, Nazara, Ash, Jason A Saslow, Matt Curls, Eric Jensen, GrowingViolet, Jeffrey Mckishen, Christopher R Boucher, Alex Hackman, Piya Shedden, charles george, Tom Mosner, Jeremy Mysliwiec, Adam Brainard, Chris Peters, Silas Emrys, Alisa Sherbow

----------
Looking for SciShow elsewhere on the internet?
----------
Sources:
General

Heat

Motion

Smaller motion

Sweat

Stomach acid

Images

[luissemedo]

"The human body is one of the most complex machines on the planet"
- A human body

[carlborneke]

You do realize that some people will now believe that you work for the Machines and that you are going to try to convince us to allow ourselves to be plugged into the Matrix right?

[propergander]

I keep on being amazed by how energy-efficient biological machines or computers like the human body and brains are compared to their electric counterparts.

[paigeherrin]

My daughter has to put a pulse oximeter on my granddaughter’s big toe when she goes to sleep. It’s got a pretty humbug wire that you have to tape down and jam a sock over to try to keep it from getting dislodged. If it comes off accidentally, a very loud alarm goes off because it no longer senses a pulse. I wonder if the 1st one described (PEG) could one day be used to power a pulse oximeter. Not sure how it would trigger the alarm though since the alarm is necessary. Maybe Bluetooth?

[BenHawkinsvids]

Another way motion is harvested is with automatic quartz watches, where the counterweight wheel and automatic winding mechanism are used to power a generator to power the quartz potion of the watch.

[LEDewey_MD]

I see lots of other people remembered "The Matrix", where Morpheus tells Neo that "the human body generates enough electricity for a 120 watt light (LEDs weren't that big yet in 1999.) ;D

[robinhahnsopran]

I knew I was a... powerful person. ✨#dadjokes

[jscotthatcher]

who needs a sentient machine race to turn us into batteries, we'll just do it to ourselves. 😜

[Beetle_beech]

It would be so convenient if essential medical monitors could be powered by our own bodies, such as a glucose monitor powered by body heat!

[shawn_dubs]

Nice video, Agent Smith, the only inaccuracy was that the swallowable electronic pill should have been blue.

[MagicSteel]

I was thinking more along the line of 110v outlet on my belly that recharges phones while burning my fat.

[bland]

Imagine combining the amount of electricity generated from every single one of these methods to see if you could get enough energy to start charging say a cell phone. Obviously it'd be super slow but even just the ability to do it in the first place would be really cool.

[jmwild]

So the "humans as batteries" technobabble from The Matrix wasn't so far-fetched after all?

[ahmadalminnawi]

1:29 similar charges repel and like charges attract? (opposite charges attract)

[mattstyles]

I remember thinking when I got my watch that's powered by kinetic energy, that is was the coolest thing ever

[SirWonkotheSane]

Is this in response to the new Matrix movie?

[bgm]

Thanks for explaining the basic techniques Skynet is going to use to develop the Matrix.

[Riomojo]

I just tried the thumbnail and now I’m going to the emergency room. My palm hurts so bad, but my phone is charging

[darkhelmete]

SO COOL. What if we made a vehicle that ran entirely on our bodies?











This is a joke. I know bikes exist.

[MrofficialC]

You messed up the electrostatics portion. You said similar charges repel and like charges attract. That's wrong if you didn't catch it. Took me a couple times repeating it to figure out why that didn't sound right myself