Phones became both lifelines and germ magnets during the pandemic: the one thing you touched constantly but probably never cleaned properly. People started wiping screens with alcohol wipes or shirt sleeves, while juggling separate UV boxes and wireless chargers that never felt portable. The idea of a cleaner phone battling the reality of one more device to pack rarely worked out in daily practice.
Picnic UV Charger merges those two needs, an extra battery and a cleaner phone, into one object. It is a wireless charger with a built-in UV sanitizer and a 10,000 mAh battery, shaped like a tiny picnic bag you can grab by the handle and drop into a tote or backpack. The compact body and soft colors keep it from looking like medical equipment parked on your desk.
Designer: SWNA Office
At a café with a questionably clean table, your battery is low, and you drop your phone onto the Picnic UV Charger instead of directly on the surface. You flip up the handle, which arches over the phone, and in about five minutes, the UV light has done its 99.9 percent sterilization pass while wireless charging quietly tops up the battery. Both tasks happen in a single gesture instead of requiring two separate gadgets.
The handle does double duty: acting as a grip and carrying the UV LEDs. Its outline follows the shape of the body, so when folded down, it disappears into the silhouette, keeping everything compact and flat enough to slip into a bag. The form was prototyped with foam and paper to check scale, then refined with 3D printing to make sure the handle felt natural to raise and lower without snagging.
Working mock-ups were used to check battery heat and operation, which is important when combining a 10,000 mAh pack, wireless charging, and UV light in a small enclosure. The team iterated the molds several times to improve assembly and minimize breakage risk, suggesting attention to hinges, snaps, and internal ribs. It is the kind of work that makes a product feel trustworthy rather than fragile after a few uses.
The soft white and mint color options, rounded corners, and lunchbox-like proportions keep it from looking clinical. Even as Covid-era anxiety fades, a portable wireless charger that also sanitizes your phone still makes sense in crowded cities, shared offices, and travel. It turns a slightly uncomfortable task into something folded into a familiar ritual: place phone on charger, flip handle, walk away.
Picnic UV Charger treats hygiene as an add-on to something you already do, charging, instead of a separate chore. The handle, the compact body, and the dual function make it feel like a small, friendly object rather than a reminder of worst-case scenarios. A wireless power bank that also quietly cleans the screen you have been tapping all day turns out to be useful, especially when it fits into your bag without looking like you are carrying a sterilization station.
