About
The Nipper - The world's smallest phone charger
£20,432
719
We've reached the £20,000 stretch goal so you can now choose to have a silicone strap in blue, red, black, or white in place of the leather or fabric straps at no extra cost. This strap is rugged, durable, and bold.
The Nipper is a seriously small portable phone charger. It is small enough for you to carry it around wherever you go, doesn’t depend on you remembering to charge it, and it relies on something readily available everywhere: household AA batteries.
The Nipper was primarily designed for emergency use. When all else fails, when all hope is lost - in situations where you desperately need to use your phone but have no access to laptops, electrical sockets, wind turbines or solar panels the Nipper will be there for you.
The Nipper is a tiny 17mm x 17mm x 17mm cube and it weighs just 10g. It’s designed to be small enough to fit perfectly on your keyring, or to fit handily into a pocket or bag. It truly is the world’s smallest phone charger.
It couldn’t be easier. When not in use, the Nipper is always with you: attached to your keyring or in your pocket or bag. When you need to charge your phone, simply open the Nipper, place two AA batteries between the magnets and connect it to your phone.
The Nipper currently works with any phone or other device with a micro-USB connector (Samsung, HTC, LG, Nokia, etc). We’re also developing a version compatible with the iPhone, so stay tuned.
For a modern smartphone, the Nipper will give an extra 10% battery capacity in 30 minutes, and 20% in just over an hour. This was tested using a HTC one M7 with Duracell Ultra AA batteries. The power output varies depending on the batteries used: with new Duracell batteries we found it gives 500mAh.
The Nipper contains 3 neodynium magnets. They have the double function of holding the batteries together while at the same time making an electrical connection to the Nippers circuit board. This circuit is called a boost converter, it turns the power from the batteries into a 5v power supply to charge your phone.
If we’re making small volumes of Nippers, we’ll 3D print the cases out of high quality nylon, but if demand is high and we have to make a full Nipper army we’re going to injection mold the cases out of polypropylene. The two halves of the Nipper are connected by either fabric or genuine leather straps. The neodynium are nickel plated on the classic Nippers, and gold plated on the premium Nippers.
AA batteries are the most universally recognised and widely sold type of battery. While it doesn’t make sense to rely on AA batteries for daily phone charging, they do come in handy if you’re in an everyday emergency and need that crucial bit of juice.
Doug and Chris - Design on Impulse. A couple of recent graduate product design engineers looking to release the Nipper into the big bad world. We’ve really enjoyed putting all our efforts into this project and with your help we can’t wait to see where it goes next.
Thank you so much for supporting our project, please spread the word about it on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc.
@nippercharger
We would like to say a big thank you to those who have supported us along the way:
Big up to Direct Line and Makerversity who have been believing in the Nipper since day 1, and immense thanks to Tracey, Paul, Ursula, Oscar, Peter, Matt, Nick, Luke, Charlie, Marco, Juliana, Roland, Rich, Hugo, Digits2Widgets, 4D Model Shop, GTC Europe, and all our family and friends!
Risks and challenges
We have been working non-stop the for last 4 months developing this product and we feel that the amount we are trying to raise is realistic with what is needed for fulfilling the project. We know that the Kickstarter journey is a long one and that there might be several surprises along the way - including strikes on the London underground, foul weather, or maybe even (shock!) our phones running out of battery. If we encounter anything that might affect the product, its development, and/or shipping date, we will make sure to notify you about it with frequent updates. This project is our #1 priority and we will do everything we can to bring the Nipper to its full potential.
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The Nipper Logo and the Nipper are trademarks of Design on Impulse.
©2015 Design on Impulse. All rights reserved.
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Funding period
- (30 days)