Now your nan can charge her iPad more easily

If your dear old grandma has trouble charging that “new touch gizmo thing,” and doesn't like faffing with cables, one Zurich company, Micasa Labs, might have a pretty elegant solution. Granted it's a little more expensive than most chargers, but it's certainly built into an item she'll be familiar with – the humble rocking chair.

Currently named the iRock chair, because lets face it, as well as actually rocking, this idea does “rock,” it uses the energy from rocking the chair back and forth to generate a small charge to help reinvigorate Apple devices. It's not the speediest of chargers, but plugging in an iPad and keeping the chair moving for an hour will get you somewhere between “3 to 35 per cent.” That's a pretty wide margin and presumably depends with how strong your grandparent's legs are, but hey, this is just one more benefit of all those long walks she took you on as a kid.

Discussing the creation of the chair, the team behind it said (via Wired): “The main challenge was to get the generator working efficiently. After trying out several designs we finally got it right and with a set of gears we're now able to get sufficient power to charge the built in battery that in its turn is charging the iPad or iPhone.”

While the price tag might seem pretty high at just over £1,000, it's not just a wooden frame with a few pulleys and gears built in. There's actually a fully functioning dock for your Apple devices, hooked up to speakers hidden in the frame, so granny can enjoy her favourite Arnold Schwarzenegger movies in her favourite chair.

KitGuru Says: Look out for these on the next early bird line for the iPhone 6.

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