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In the spirit of getting outdoors for the great British summer, PE intrepidly tried out the Biolite CampStove. Fuelled by biomass, this small and handy camping accessory promises to boil a litre of water in 4.5 minutes and charge your phone
The box contains the stove, the light add-on, a USB cable, a small pack of firestarter sticks and a carry bag. The stove itself seems robust and well designed. Indeed, the whole package, including the box, has that well-designed ‘neat’ feel made popular by Apple. This is a product made with the smartphone generation firmly in mind.
Similarly, the instructions included are scant – the expectation is that you will be looking online for detailed documents. The orange unit, which contains a battery, power converter and a fan, has to be charged for six hours before the first use.
The orange unit attaches to the side of the steel container, the inside chamber of which has holes to facilitate the passage of air. The biomass fuel, dry twigs, foliage or the like, is placed inside the steel container and burnt. The orange fan unit both intensifies the burning of the biomass, and facilitates the charging of devices such as smartphones and cameras. The unit does this by converting excess heat into electricity using Biolite’s patented thermoelectric technology. The battery is self-charging. The stove’s peak output is 4W at 5V.
When tested in the reviewer’s back garden, the stove operated more than adequately. The stove is surprisingly efficient, the downside being that you have to add fuel often. The rate of charging for a smartphone is slow, unfortunately wearing out the reviewer’s patience beyond the cooking of a tin of baked beans.
So, once past the novelty factor, the question has to be asked if an alcohol or gas stove would be cheaper, lighter, easier to use and more effective to heat meals, while a battery power pack could be used to power devices. Also if you are an infrequent camper, the £100-plus outlay, plus extra for accessories such as the kettle and grill, may prove a little too expensive. But the cleverness, effectiveness and usefulness of the stove is not in question.