The stove that turns heat into electricity
Grill your meat while charging your phone
Bio Lite Camp Stove
€150, bioliteenergy.com
★★★★★
It can’t just be me, but it really does feels like spring. These days, even technology is seasonal and it’s time to look at the sort of tech that makes life outdoors or on holiday a little bit easier, and a bit more fun. Maybe we’re too reliant on our phones, but if you’re touring or camping, keeping a phone powered up when you’re away from home is a very sensible plan.
The BioLite CampStove is an average size camping stove, standing around five inches tall. The kit includes a curious looking bright orange thermoelectric generator, a fuel chamber, some firestarter sticks, a pot adapter, a carry bag ... and a USB cable.
The generator attaches to the fuel chamber easily. I dropped in some twigs and then I lit it and dropped in a couple of the included firestarter sticks. As the fire took hold, I pressed the On button. The stove has two power settings, Hi and Low and you use the Low setting initially as the Startup mode. As the device powers up, the internal fan forces air back into the burn chamber, improving combustion. I added more wood and set the power to Hi.
Despite the soaring temperature, thanks to a cleverly designed honeycombed heat mesh, the body of the stove remains remarkably cool to the touch. Running on high power, I boiled a kettle of water in less than five minutes and the optional Portable BBQ Grill (€70) performed equally impressively. I was able to grill quickly but with almost none of that eye-stinging smoke that we expect from back-garden BBQs.
As the chicken and peppers sizzled contentedly, I reached for my smart- phone, attached the cable and plugged it into the stove. The phone chirped and cooking and charging were underway at the same time. The BioLite has a little probe that sits in the fire and captures excess heat which it turns in to electricity. Twenty minutes of charging at good heat will give you around an hour of talktime on your phone. It’s unlikely you’d rely on it for fully-charging any specific device but it is perfect for topping up a phone or a GoPro after an evening on the beach.
Capacity or size was a challenge for me as I found myself topping up fuel a couple of times as I cooked. Yet it is ideally sized for packing in the boot or a backpack, so I’d accept the compromise.
BioLite makes larger versions of the CampStove, which are growing popular in disconnected communities around the world, and it reinvests a portion of every sale in its work to bring clean cooking and energy to India and subSaharan Africa. This is new outdoor tech for old-fashioned weekends made with precision that really does turn fire in to electricity. Not only does it work well, it does good.