AT&T will rescue your dying phone with a solar-power charging station

No need to bring your own cables.

AT&T is sponsoring 25 solar-powered charging stations across the five boroughs of New York City, the New York Times reported Tuesday. The stations, which look like fan blades mounted atop a 12.5-foot-pole, will be installed in outdoor locations like parks and beaches and will rotate to new places through October.

The solar-paneled structures can charge up to six devices at a time, with three USB accommodations and one microUSB, Apple 30-pin dock connector, and Lightning connector each. Hence, the charging stations can only take care of one iPhone 5, one older-gen iPhone, and one Android/Windows Phone/Blackberry apiece; if one of your own kind is already there, you're out of luck unless you bring your own charging cable to make one of the generic USB ports work for your phone.

The NY Times cites Hurricane Sandy as the inspiration for the project. During the aftermath, AT&T rolled out diesel generators and cell towers to provide supplementary power and services to areas that had both knocked out. Outside AT&T’s involvement, the hurricane was also a time of generous communal power-strip-sharing.

The stations will only stay at each location for between three and four weeks at a time, so if you happen across one, appreciate it while it lasts. AT&T plans for the stations to appear in locations like Governors Island, Pier 59 in Hudson River Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park, and Rockaway Beach, as well as at “several cultural events.”

Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston