We've all experienced the horror of a dying smartphone at the worst possible moment, but a new case from Nikola Labs is designed to prevent this scenario. The new iPhone 6 case, revealed at TechCrunch Disrupt, can harvest energy from radio frequencies (RF) — such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and LTE — and turn it into DC power.
Don't be fooled. It's not an extra battery. Instead, the Nikola Labs case takes the 90 percent wasted energy your smartphone loses from pumping out a wireless signal and converts it back so the phone can use it for power. Nikola Labs claims the case can power the iPhone 6 30 percent longer using this technique.
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Some of the other features listed on Nikola Labs' website include an extra layer of protection, an RF-harvesting antenna, a signal-strength indicator and an RF-DC converter.
The company is partnering with Ohio State University and hopes to bring the product to market within a year. The case will soon launch on Kickstarter for $99. The prospect of getting extra battery power from thin air sounds a bit too good to be true, so we're eager to see how the case holds up once it enters the wild.
Valentina Palladino is a senior writer for Tom's Guide. Follow her at @valentinalucia. Follow Tom's Guide at @tomsguide and on Facebook.
