The Greener Gadgets conference in New York on Feb. 25 is almost upon us, and the winners of the now-annual Greener Gadgets Design Competition will be announced.

Last year, the winner was Tweet-A-Watt, which—you guessed it—is a modified Kill-A-Watt home power meter that a device plugs into and which will send its energy consumption info to all your followers on Twitter. 

Of the entries this year, I’m encouraged to see a couple of home energy management devices, a sustainable subwoofer (really)—and there are several fledgling products that rely on kinetic (motion-based) energy to power small mobile electronics. My guess is that in a few years, nearly all our mobile electronics will be powered or charged at least in part by kinetic energy.

Click here to view a slideshow of some other greener gadgets of note in the competition, from smart grid devices to chargers to green GPS (images courtesy of Greener Gadgets).

Steven Castle - Contributing Writer

Steven Castle is Electronic House's managing editor. he has been writing about consumer electronics, homes and energy efficiency topics for two decades. He is also the co-founder of GreenTech Advocates.