ChargedUp’s portable phone chargers are here to save your battery woes

Prices start from 50p for 30 minutes, up to £3 for a full 24-hours usage. The ChargedUp batteries work with both Android smartphones as well as iPhones.

The start-up’s founder and CEO Hugo Tilmouth said: “Battery life has not managed to keep up with the demands we put on our smartphones, and running low part-way through the day is now a common, and very frustrating, occurrence.

“It was certainly driving us mad, which is why we developed ChargedUp as an easy, cost-effective way to charge your phone on the go.”

Tilmouth has big plans for ChargedUp. He hopes the chargers will be in 1,000 venues across the capital before the end of 2018, with plans to expand into the rest of the UK next year.

The entire ChargedUp network runs on green energy, made possible by a partnership with the renewable energy company Ecotricity. Tilmouth said this is because protecting the environment is at the core of the start-up.

But what stops someone from taking a ChargedUp battery and not returning it? Tilmouth explains that each battery has its own ID chip, so each battery can be linked to a user. It's location is monitored whilst it is in a station so the company knows where you take a battery from and where it is returned, but not where it goes in between

If someone neglects to return a ChargedUp battery they will be charged £3 a day up to £30. At this point, they will have effectively purchased the battery.

They are then given free access to the network for the whole year. They can charge the battery at home or swap it at a ChargedUp location for another fully charged battery.

You can simply purchase a ChargedUp battery for a straight £30 for this access for the year, or up to £3 a pop.

ChargedUp isn’t the only way you can charge your phone on the go. In places like Westfield, you can find ChargeBox, which allows you to lock your phone away and charge it for 30 minutes for free.

ChargePoint offers a similar locker service.

But, ChargedUp is the only service where you can take the charger on the go with you, instead of having to return to a specific location to pick your phone back up.