Solar Powered Tech

Rob ⚡️

I've owned a Garmin Instinct watch for a few months now and there's a lot that I love about it. One of my favorite features is its photovoltaic display, which sucks in the sun's energy and charges the battery. Sunnier weather allows the watch to easily last a full month without needing to be charged via USB.

You'll notice that the bezel around the screen is the primary surface used to gather the sun's energy efficiently, but even the MIP display itself is able to contribute to longer battery life.

It got me thinking about any other low-energy consumer tech products that could benefit from this same technology. Even if they can't be entirely powered by the sun, the benefits of elongated battery life could be very welcome.

Where else do you imagine this tech being used?

Louis ☕️

Rob ⚡️ Oh this is cool! How often do you find you need to charge yours?

In terms of other tech that could benefit from this, you could somewhat implement it into portable Bluetooth speakers - quite a lot of people use these on holiday and they will be outside, so it only makes sense to allow the sun to help with the charging and not worry about your favourite playlist cutting out 🎵

Have you thought about a toaster perhaps?

Rob ⚡️

Louis ☕️ How often do you find you need to charge yours?

Every 3 weeks or so in the winter; it will do well over 20 days - even without the sun!

Speakers are a great shout - the perfect use-case in my opinion. You can almost imagine the back of a phone being used as a large solar panel - topping up with power as you sit in the pub garden … what a dream!

Have you thought about a toaster perhaps?

I don't own one, I wouldn't know how they work 😆

adbo

Great topic! I remember I used to have a solar powered phone charger but it took absolutely ages to even charge a couple %. I'd imagine solar tech has moved on since then and I'm surprised they're not more popular nowadays, along with solar power banks too. Those would be great for camping, festivals and road trips

Rob ⚡️

adbo Yeah, I think the outdoor/survival aspects are really easy marketing wins! As I say, I think low-power devices like watches and TWS are the perfect candidate for something like this.