It’s a problem almost everyone has had — being far away from home with a cell phone battery that is dead or dying. A new company based in New Orleans, MobileQubes, is offering a solution.
Sean Carrigan got the idea to manufacture portable phone and tablet charging devices about two years ago. He was in a New Orleans restaurant after a long day of multitasking on his smartphone, and his battery was almost dead.
"I looked around and saw that there probably were five or six other people in a similar position,” Carrigan says. “I thought to myself, there’s got to be a better way of solving this problem. I’d love to be able to pay a few dollars and have somewhere to charge my phone, but still be able to use it while it’s charging."
He assembled a team — co-founders Jason Palmer and Mike Melito have backgrounds in wireless technology, mechanical engineering, and business — and the concept of MobileQubes was born.
“We started to really build out the concept from a mechanical and engineering perspective, utilizing technology that was out there and creating a new way to solve this mobile power problem," Carrigan says.
MobileQubes can be rented for about 5 dollars a day, and about one dollar a day after that. So far, the devices have been installed in high-traffic areas like Tulane University’s main campus, the Hyatt Regency on Poydras, and the airport.
Support for Tech and Innovation reporting on WWNO provided by Bellwether Technology.