Propane with Purpose: Genstove Project Offers Gadget Charging with Camping Stove

Genstove: KickStarter Project Offers Gadget Charging with Camping Stove

While proof of concept is still a work in progress, a recent KickStarter project out of South Korea has the potential to open up a new avenue for campers and people who are either off grid or need backup in a power outage.

Genstove, created by South Korea’s Viva Plus, provides a thermoelectric charging solution that is generated by heat waste produced by cooking with propane (or butane). It provides a universal solution for cooking and charging simultaneously.

The Genstove packs its burner, thermal generator and watercooling basket into a cylindrical main body below a two-piece pot stand. As the stove boils or sautés, heat flux from the waste heat cooled by the water basket creates electricity that flows into the connected portable battery pack. Users can either through-charge devices like smartphones or Bluetooth speakers from the 3,200mAh lithium pack’s USB output or store the power for later use. Viva Plus estimates that it will add 1 percent to a smartphone’s battery after a minute of charging. Beyond charging off the stove, the battery pack can charge via a USB-C charging cable or a portable solar panel.

The KickStarter campaign made its goal and the first set of stoves were sent out to backers. Next steps for the company are not clear from the website. You can check out the pitch at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/genstove/genstove-the-gas-stove-poweredgenerator/description.

Viva Plus is a Korean startup company. The development of Genstove came out of an idea from the cooking process of our daily lifeApproximately 70 percent of the heat energy used from cooking is wasted, and the product founders aim to harvest the energy for reuse. They said, “We thought the idea could be a great solution for people who live in an era of energy scarcity like us.” It took the company about two years to develop the product.