3 ms·

It sure would be nice to see some way to harness all this energy falling around us. I'd far prefer to just catch a few rays to charge my toys than plug into so

It sure would be nice to see some way to harness all this energy falling around us. I'd far prefer to just catch a few rays to charge my toys than plug into some far distant machine. I remember thinking, in my youth, that the technology that enabled CASIO calculation would one day be applied as well to a bigger Turing machine, but I'm yet to see a solar-powered computer. I sure wish it'd happen, though. All these magic solar energy storage/conversion systems need to start showing up on SOM/SOC's, imho ..

micromacrofoot 5mo ago
you still need too much surface area and too much storage to generate the amount of power needed absent of a major breakthrough solar will always be a house/grid level technology, which is fine and works at scale
- nickpeterson 5mo ago
  I think I saw an apple A16 takes about 8 watts, which would be about a square foot of solar panel. So assuming we keep making progress it doesn’t seem insane to me that a laptop where the back of the lcd is a solar panel would be enough?
  - blacksmith_tb 5mo ago
    Angle though isn't ideal, unless the PV panel pops off the lid so you can position it better (and still be able to open the screen far enough back to read - though that's often not great in bright sun). I remember the OLPC could be run by hoisting a bucket of sand or water up on a rope and pulley on a tree branch and letting it drive a small generator as that came back down - and that was almost 20yr ago).
  - micromacrofoot 5mo ago
    the mild inconvenience of needing to be in direct sun for N hours always overshadows this you need a massive efficiency improvement to overcome this we're still in the calculators and tv remotes level of on-device solar
  - Rekindle8090 5mo ago
    [dead]
- blacksmith_tb 5mo ago
  Sure, so a solar-only laptop is not practical, but generating the power in its battery on your roof is a solved problem. This MOST process doesn't immediately look like it has home-scale applications (maybe in cold climates), but for heat to make steam, promising.
- bawolff 5mo ago
  I wonder how far you could get if you were really trying. E.g. raspberry pi, eink, etc.
  - gavmor 5mo ago
    Yeah, I suspect we're mostly quite wasteful of energy.
  - micromacrofoot 5mo ago
    vim in a terminal could reduce overhead significantly, but if you need a browser for anything you're kind of hosed because they're so inefficient on the whole
vitally3643 5mo ago
[dead]
steanne 5mo ago
i can think of a somewhat well-known one, but its uptime is predictably bad https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/ https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/
- rigonkulous 5mo ago
  This is always an inspiration for how close we can get ..
smt88 5mo ago
I have solar panels at my house. My laptop, phone, and iPad are solar powered (on most days).
akdor1154 5mo ago
I have a consumer motion-triggered camera that is armed 24/7 and records for 30 seconds after each trigger. It has WiFi and serves playback itself, as well as of course video encoding. It's probably running Linux though i haven't verified. It runs off a 25cm square solar panel screwed to a wall that only receives direct illumination for 5 hours a day, and is not in any way optimised beyond 'that looks roughly like it's pointing at the sun'. Works great!

micromacrofoot 5mo ago

you still need too much surface area and too much storage to generate the amount of power needed absent of a major breakthrough solar will always be a house/grid level technology, which is fine and works at scale

nickpeterson 5mo ago
I think I saw an apple A16 takes about 8 watts, which would be about a square foot of solar panel. So assuming we keep making progress it doesn’t seem insane to me that a laptop where the back of the lcd is a solar panel would be enough?
- blacksmith_tb 5mo ago
  Angle though isn't ideal, unless the PV panel pops off the lid so you can position it better (and still be able to open the screen far enough back to read - though that's often not great in bright sun). I remember the OLPC could be run by hoisting a bucket of sand or water up on a rope and pulley on a tree branch and letting it drive a small generator as that came back down - and that was almost 20yr ago).
- micromacrofoot 5mo ago
  the mild inconvenience of needing to be in direct sun for N hours always overshadows this you need a massive efficiency improvement to overcome this we're still in the calculators and tv remotes level of on-device solar
- Rekindle8090 5mo ago
  [dead]
blacksmith_tb 5mo ago
Sure, so a solar-only laptop is not practical, but generating the power in its battery on your roof is a solved problem. This MOST process doesn't immediately look like it has home-scale applications (maybe in cold climates), but for heat to make steam, promising.
bawolff 5mo ago
I wonder how far you could get if you were really trying. E.g. raspberry pi, eink, etc.
- gavmor 5mo ago
  Yeah, I suspect we're mostly quite wasteful of energy.
- micromacrofoot 5mo ago
  vim in a terminal could reduce overhead significantly, but if you need a browser for anything you're kind of hosed because they're so inefficient on the whole

vitally3643 5mo ago

[dead]

steanne 5mo ago

i can think of a somewhat well-known one, but its uptime is predictably bad https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/ https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/

rigonkulous 5mo ago
This is always an inspiration for how close we can get ..

smt88 5mo ago

I have solar panels at my house. My laptop, phone, and iPad are solar powered (on most days).

akdor1154 5mo ago

I have a consumer motion-triggered camera that is armed 24/7 and records for 30 seconds after each trigger. It has WiFi and serves playback itself, as well as of course video encoding. It's probably running Linux though i haven't verified. It runs off a 25cm square solar panel screwed to a wall that only receives direct illumination for 5 hours a day, and is not in any way optimised beyond 'that looks roughly like it's pointing at the sun'. Works great!