“The average active person generates enough energy from everyday motion to power a smartphone for three hours” Alex Smith, Mike Geier & Tejas Shastry – co-founders, AMPY
AMPY launched on Kickstarter and has since raised over US$300k in funding
Tell us about yourselves We – the three co-founders of AMPY – met during our PhDs in engineering at Northwestern University, US. We wanted to solve a problem we all had: our smartphones dying at the most inconvenient times. We all depend so much on our mobile devices, but we still have no convenient way of making sure they don’t run out of power.
Since we were active people, we wondered if we could capture some of the energy from our daily activities and use it to power our phones.
We all had experience in clean tech start-ups focused on solar, fuel cell and battery technologies. Putting together our shared knowledge of energy harvesting, we came up with the technology advances for AMPY.
So what is AMPY? AMPY is a wearable motion charger that captures energy from your movements and stores it. You can then use that energy to power your smartphone or any other USB-powered device: the average active person generates enough energy from everyday motion to power a smartphone for three hours.
Inside of AMPY are our proprietary inductors, which couple to your motion and generate electricity that’s stored in a battery inside. When you need it the most, you simply plug in your device to charge it from the energy stored.
But it’s a dual mode charger too, meaning you can charge it either from your movement – which can offset the carbon footprint of your smartphone – or from the socket on the wall.
At what stage of its development is AMPY? Over the last two years, we’ve prototyped AMPY and tested it with pilot users to make sure it’s easy to wear and fits in your life.
Last autumn, we brought AMPY to the world by launching a Kickstarter campaign, where we raised over US$300,000. Since then, we’ve been scaling up our manufacturing to get AMPY to customers by summer of 2015.
Do you have any plans to further develop AMPY? We hope to not only scale and deliver the AMPY motion charger to our customers, but also to integrate our technology directly into wearable devices and power them.
One day, we envision self-charging smartwatches, fitness trackers and other crazy wearables that haven’t even been invented yet – a future where you never have to plug in, because smartwatches and fitness trackers will be able to power themselves entirely from your movement. There’s so much that we believe can be done.
WANT TO GET AMPY?
To find out more, or to pre-order your own AMPY, log on to www.getampy.com
Just plug in your device to charge on the go
The three co-founders of AMPY met at Northwestern University in the US - Alex Smith
The three co-founders of AMPY met at Northwestern University in the US - Mike Geier
The three co-founders of AMPY met at Northwestern University in the US - Tejas Shastry
Panatta brought together four of the most influential figures in bodybuilding history on the
stage of RiminiWellness 2026: Phil Heath, Lee Haney, Ronnie Coleman and Hany Rambod. [more...]
CoverMe, the global leader in fitness workforce management, today launches CoverMe PT, an
on-demand personal training platform that connects the right personal trainer to the right
client in under 10 seconds. [more...]
+ More featured suppliers
COMPANY PROFILES
Serco Leisure
Serco Leisure Operating Limited is one of the UK’s leading national operators of leisure centres, de [more...]
ukactive
ukactive is the UK’s leading trade body for the physical activity sector, bringing together more tha [more...]
“The average active person generates enough energy from everyday motion to power a smartphone for three hours” Alex Smith, Mike Geier & Tejas Shastry – co-founders, AMPY
AMPY launched on Kickstarter and has since raised over US$300k in funding
Tell us about yourselves We – the three co-founders of AMPY – met during our PhDs in engineering at Northwestern University, US. We wanted to solve a problem we all had: our smartphones dying at the most inconvenient times. We all depend so much on our mobile devices, but we still have no convenient way of making sure they don’t run out of power.
Since we were active people, we wondered if we could capture some of the energy from our daily activities and use it to power our phones.
We all had experience in clean tech start-ups focused on solar, fuel cell and battery technologies. Putting together our shared knowledge of energy harvesting, we came up with the technology advances for AMPY.
So what is AMPY? AMPY is a wearable motion charger that captures energy from your movements and stores it. You can then use that energy to power your smartphone or any other USB-powered device: the average active person generates enough energy from everyday motion to power a smartphone for three hours.
Inside of AMPY are our proprietary inductors, which couple to your motion and generate electricity that’s stored in a battery inside. When you need it the most, you simply plug in your device to charge it from the energy stored.
But it’s a dual mode charger too, meaning you can charge it either from your movement – which can offset the carbon footprint of your smartphone – or from the socket on the wall.
At what stage of its development is AMPY? Over the last two years, we’ve prototyped AMPY and tested it with pilot users to make sure it’s easy to wear and fits in your life.
Last autumn, we brought AMPY to the world by launching a Kickstarter campaign, where we raised over US$300,000. Since then, we’ve been scaling up our manufacturing to get AMPY to customers by summer of 2015.
Do you have any plans to further develop AMPY? We hope to not only scale and deliver the AMPY motion charger to our customers, but also to integrate our technology directly into wearable devices and power them.
One day, we envision self-charging smartwatches, fitness trackers and other crazy wearables that haven’t even been invented yet – a future where you never have to plug in, because smartwatches and fitness trackers will be able to power themselves entirely from your movement. There’s so much that we believe can be done.
WANT TO GET AMPY?
To find out more, or to pre-order your own AMPY, log on to www.getampy.com
Just plug in your device to charge on the go
The three co-founders of AMPY met at Northwestern University in the US - Alex Smith
The three co-founders of AMPY met at Northwestern University in the US - Mike Geier
The three co-founders of AMPY met at Northwestern University in the US - Tejas Shastry
The UK's four Chief Medical Officers have published a refreshed edition of Physical activity
guidelines: UK Chief Medical Officers' report, updating the evidence that underpins the nation's
physical activity recommendations and placing greater emphasis on strength, balance, reducing
sedentary behaviour and, for the first time, supporting people taking weight loss medications.
Places Leisure has exchanged contracts to build and operate a flagship £60m water and leisure
destination on behalf of Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council.
The Republic of Ireland will become the latest market in PureGym’s expanding international
portfolio, with the first launch planned for Dublin in 2027.
Anytime Fitness opened more than one club a day in 2025 and is on track to maintain this rate
of growth this year, as parent company Purpose Brands targets further international expansion.
The £33.9 million Leighton Leisure and Community Centre has opened in Leighton Buzzard, UK,
creating a next-generation public leisure, health and wellbeing hub for the local community.
Walnuts Leisure Centre in Orpington, in the London Borough of Bromley, has reopened following
a £17m transformation designed to secure the long-term future of the public leisure asset and
reposition it as a community wellbeing hub.
The Gym Group, has announced that it's sustained positive trading momentum has continued
through the first half of 2026 and the company remains confident about the outlook.
Luxury boutique Pilates and wellness studio, X-Club, officially launches a
4,000sq ft flagship at
Marylebone on 16 July Built around X-Club’s four pillars of wellness – mind,
movement,
nutrition and therapy – the facility features two group exercise studi
Panatta brought together four of the most influential figures in bodybuilding history on the
stage of RiminiWellness 2026: Phil Heath, Lee Haney, Ronnie Coleman and Hany Rambod. [more...]
CoverMe, the global leader in fitness workforce management, today launches CoverMe PT, an
on-demand personal training platform that connects the right personal trainer to the right
client in under 10 seconds. [more...]
+ More featured suppliers
COMPANY PROFILES
Serco Leisure Serco Leisure Operating Limited is one of the UK’s leading national operators of leisure centres, de [more...]
