Sometimes my Nokia N95 battery seems to last forever, other times it just dies – it depends on coverage, what Gravity is doing, and if I’ve been using WiFi. Similarly my iPod touch can last days or suddenly die. NEED POWER. Or rather, I need portable power.

I’ve seen both @ilicco and @documentally using powertraveller products (and they had won a Queen’s award for Enterprise), so when I saw a discount code on Twitter for 20% off I caved in. I also wanted to grab the opportunity to reduce electricity consumption (saving on stand by power is going very well so far), so I went for the powermonkey-eXplorer. It’s basically a booster battery which can be charged by mains, USB or solar power.

It’ll live in my rucksack,  so if my phone or iPod go flat I always have a way to charge them, even on the move. On longer trips I’m hoping I can charge them from the powermonkey and then recharge the powermonkey via it’s solar panel.

The whole experience so far has been great – the powertraveller store is really well laid out and nicely written – got to love the way that “i want some” is in the shop url. I got an email when I placed the order, confirmation of delivery, and an email when it arrived (so I knew before I even got home). All very slick. I’ll see how I get on with it… …In the mean time if you want to see some vintage tech, check out Maggie Philbin’s blog post on Kingswood Warren, ahead of the program on BBC Click.

Current Cost Meter

Phase I is already underway, as we now have a current cost meter installed (get yours here thanks to Southern Electric’s discount). Setting it up took about 10 minutes. The unit has already paid for itself by identifying a few unsuspected power-hogging devices – our ambient power consumption has already gone down from 700 Watts to under 350 Watts. The kids want to get it under 200, and are now militant about turning every unused device off – in the case of my middle son that also includes power sockets with nothing in them, bless him.

Current Cost Sensor Unit

Our peak-burst power usage is around 3Kw for very short periods, so it may be feasible for us to go off-grid, at least from an electric perspective. The next step is to do a wind survey and see if that could supply our ambient power needs.

Later this month I’ll be heading along to homecamp, a UK gathering of home hackers, and will hopefully pick up some good ideas there…