A portable device to recharge mobiles that will only cost €1? We’re interested…

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, a new device that could save us from the horrors of a dead smartphone battery may have arrived.

By Adrian Collins

According to the inventors, a start-up company called Wysips based in France, they've got an invention that could charge your smartphone and save you from seeing the dead battery message.

A single thin transparent film that would sit over your smartphone screen can give you enough power to keep the phone running even when your battery is low. Ten minutes in the sun will give you two minutes of talk-time, but a full charge would take six hours, so it's mainly designed for top ups to see you through until you can get your hands on a charger.

They're hoping to roll out the product into shops by the end of 2013, which will cost around €1, and eventually expect that manufacturers will add them to phones themselves before they roll out.

Since the device is recharged by sunlight, it will of course be absolutely useless here, but JOE is personally (and bravely, we might add) volunteering to go to the beaches of Spain to test this one out and see if it works.