Camp Stove Cooks with Wood & Powers Gadgets

Wood is the oldest cooking fuel, used for millennia in campfires and stoves for hot food, warmth and a cozy atmosphere. We’ve since moved on to other forms of fuel, especially for camping and backpacking, but this cool gadget brings us full-circle in a decidedly high-tech way: the BioLite CampStove cooks with wood and then converts the heat produced by the fire into power for your gadgets.

Compact and self-contained, the BioLite eliminates the need to carry liquid fuel for portable cookstoves and won’t leave a trace when you leave your campsite. Just gather twigs to burn in the stove and you’ll have a little fire that still provides a central gathering point (and a fire source for roasting marshmallows.)

As small as a Nalgene water bottle, the BioLite powers all USB-chargeable devices like smart phones, LED lights and GPS. It folds up small and can also burn pine cones, pellets and other forms of biomass.

Cool as it would be for camping, that’s not the BioLite’s only use. It would be ideal in a power outage, and also has potential for applications in developing countries where power is not available and there isn’t always access to safe cooking methods. It’ll be available this spring for $129. (via gearpatrol)