I don't agree. In Africa where not all ppl have access to the electricity grid it have practical use. Together with google internet balloons plan it might be a game changer.
Musta been a very quick look. They are radically different products.
FlameStower is a folding unit which extends a thermocouple panel over a fire (gas stove illustrated), with a water holder for cooling.
BioLite is a cylinder which you build a wood fire in, has a thermocouple rod extending into, is air-cooled, and includes a fan (improving fire efficiency) and battery for running the fan until the thermocouple kicks in.
If by "same product" you meant the two BioLite products...
The BioLite CampStove is a small unit suitable (barely, considering size & weight) for backpacking; fuel is inserted in the top. The HomeStove is MUCH larger, and fuel is inserted in a gaping hole in the side; it is also designed (moreso than the CampStove) to minimize smoke production (very efficient burn using the fan) to reduce the large number of people (millions?) who die of cumulative smoke inhalation from cooking fires.
The tech used in either of these (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peltier_effect) has been known of since the 1800's - in the tech world we usually see it applied to exotic cooling solutions for microprocessors.
Strictly speaking it's not the Peltier effect, but the Seebeck effect. One is the inverse of the other; Peltier junctions produce a temperature gradient when current is passed through, and Seebeck ones generate a current when exposed to a temperature gradient.
I think for the most part you can actually run either type in either mode, but the design and materials differ for optimal efficiency across the 2 modes.
The camping version has fold out legs, and the battery/fan pack on the side detaches and stores inside the unit for transporting. The other version has a wider base, and the pack on the side doesn't look removable (overall not as backpack friendly).
From my understanding fuel cells are already in some limited use in Africa. At a VMWorld partners conference several years ago I spoke to a South African guy working for Wyse and he said that they had a bunch of small installations powered by fuel cells.
Where people don't have access to the grid they also use fire and water for other stuff. Cooking food comes to mind. It will have some limited use if it is just a thermocouple plate that sits below the pot.
People in Africa aren't going to be using a USB generator. They will generate to a battery and then use that battery later. This device will _waste_ the output of the fire for the most part, it's open..not closed like a calorimeter. It's a joke of a device.
