Using only twigs, you can cook your food with this quick-lighting little camp stove. The CampStove from BioLite is only 8.25″ x 5″, weighs 2 pounds, and folds up for easy packing. When you get to the campsite, it burns twigs, pine cones, pellets, and other biomass, so you don’t have to carry heavy fuel cylinders. The CampStove can also convert some of the heat from your fires into energy to charge your USB-chargeable phone, LED flashlight, or GPS. It’s also useful to have at home in case of power loss or other emergency conditions. BioLite is also using this technology to provide safe fires in developing countries. The CampStove will ship in time for the camping season this year. The cost is $129; you can reserve yours now, but you won’t be charged until the CampStove ships.
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“BioLite is also using this technology to provide safe fires in developing countries.”
Yeah, because if you let those poor backwards people in “developing countries” use fire out in the open, they’ll burn the whole country down. Really? Funny, how I’ve been doing it wrong this whole time…just using a lightweight $2 trowel to dig a hole and build a fire ring around it. Now I can slap down $129 (yeah, that’s affordable in those “developing countries”) for something that weighs a third as much as my tent and takes up half as much space instead! But hey…I can charge my iPhone with it! Yeah, that’s good for camping. This is a product without a need.
Oh, one more thing…how is it being used in developing countries already if they have yet to make any?
@Rob They use similar technology in other products, not just this one. No one is concerned with “burning the whole country down.” Lots of people are injured or killed by open fires every year, and contained fires like this could offer safer methods of cooking food. But you keep using your trowel…
Are you really buying what they’re saying on their website? That 2 million people die from open fires, and that this stove would prevent that? (Not to mention the following point about global warming…I don’t think that burning sticks in this device will reduce emissions one bit.) For charging devices while camping, you’ll get a lot more power from a solar array than any thermocouple (which is what this is), for less cost and much less weight. I’ll make you a deal…next time I go camping up at The Priest, I’ll try this stove if you’ll gladly carry it for me in your pack. But I’ve been to developing countries, and I have to say, they already have the small fire thing figured out pretty well, whether it’s in Africa or in Beijing (which is where you’re actually most likely to find a small fire being used for cooking). And in none of those places can they afford this stove; in most of them, this stove costs more than a month’s earnings for an entire family.
I’ll go so far as to make a prediction that is easily validated using objective means. This product will not exist 2 years after it comes to market, if it comes to market at all. And I’ll still be able to buy a trowel, just like the one I have.
@Rob I think you are misundstanding the whole point of stoves like this. The problem isn’t the danger of burns from open fires (although they are more dangerous than stoves) it’s the environmental and health impacts from their inefficiency. A good stove can produce much more heat and cooking power while using much less fuel. While it may not cause much impact for you, one person, to go into a lightly-visited forest and build one fire, imagine the impact of millions of people cooking over open fires every day! They are literally “burning the whole country down”! Efficient stoves can make a huge difference health wise too because they produce less smoke. A stove that can generate a small amount of electricity can also greatly improve the quality of life in developing countries. In places where on-the-grid electricity is not available they can charge LED lanterns, radios and cell phones and thus bring the basics of modren life to people who can’t get it any other way. I’d also like to point out that when they sell stuff like this in third world countries they usually sell them for less than their production costs; they make up the profit by charging extra to us super-rich (in comparison) folks who just want to charge our iPhones while backpacking.
Here here, @Cary. Well said. @Rob, you need to take a chill pill. I think it’s a great idea personally and have pre-ordered one as they’re not available yet in the UK: http://www.aboveandbeyond.co.uk/.biolite-campstove_973100140000.htm. Will be a fun camping companion.