Re: Marketing lies
"You've got to grab the item in question"
For a second, I thought it was early Dabbsy Day.
It's hard, isn't it — plugging in kit? You've got to grab the item in question, find a charger, and then give it a bit of USB-C. Wouldn't it be simpler if your gadgets just magically charged themselves, using the abundant energy provided by the Sun's rays? Well, that's the basic premise behind the JBL REFLECT Eternal. …
Given a reasonable size roof it works well. I tried to make one many years ago and it worked reasonably well. On rainy days it lit a small LED light. I reckoned that about an hour of drizzle would give about 8 hours of light. It really needs a tiny solar panel as well for those rare days when it does not rain in the UK.
Main problems I found:
As water tends to run down the inside walls of the drainpipe it needed a funnel type arrangement to move this to centre and concentrate the flow. However, when it rained heavily this made the pipe back up! A diversion pipe slightly higher up the pipe, bypassing the funnel, would resolve this and could be built into the battery holder (I actually used a large capacitor).
It was quite a pain to build, but that would be much easier with a 3D printer.
I didn't do a patent search, as I was never going to sell the devices, but I'm sure there must be one out there. And if there isn't a patent - then this is prior art!
Harman (and hence parent Samsung) own the Automotive division of B&O.
and B&O sold their Czech based engineering/manufacturing division a while back.
The rest of B&O is owned by Arbejdsmarkedets Tillægspension and Sparkle Roll Group Limited.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bang_%26_Olufsen
Two and a half days ? I call bollocks on those numbers. First of all, I don't believe that wireless headphones can last 68 hours on a full charge, full stop. Next, I seriously doubt that a small band of photovoltaic cells can recharge whatever battery it has to 100% in a mere 90 minutes - even if you live at the Equator in the middle of a drought.
Somebody post some figures that are more realistic.
Yeah, it's not as simple as the headline suggests - see https://reflect.jbl.com
Start fully charged, listen to music for 3.5 hours per day and change for 1.5 hours under light at 50,000 lux and it's claimed you get 68 hours of listening time. A bit like fully charging your normal pair of headphones then topping them up for half an hour each day.
Still not too bad but a bit too marketing speak for my liking.
Actully, it's really exciting tech. we mains charge it fully just once, then it keeps topping up with sun light and lasts much longer (as opposed to much less hours without the sun light). Future versions will gradually become more powerful.
Now you've done it. It's sure to fail by Solstice. You should never speak of equipment longevity. Ever.
And yet the landing gear on Air Force One is a remarkable piece of kit - it's lasted ages!
(No really NSA/CIA/USA this IS a joke)
The solar panel might generate up to 300mW/h with 1.5 hours of intense perpendicular sunlight. That works out to, at best, an unusable 4.4mW for 68 hours. My guess is that some fine print says that it runs for 68 hours if you're using it 30 minutes a day for phone calls.
I know Hyundai (IIRC) have announced a new car that can trickle charge it's electric batteries via solar, but why aren't more firms following this idea - after all, there's plenty of flat horizontal surfaces on a car that could lend themselves to having solar panels fitted...and likewise with coaches, buses and trucks.
Just seems too sensible I s'pose?
Cost/benefit says no.
There aren't enough usable square $UNITOFMEASUREs to do more than trickle-charge the system, giving you a couple miles of extra travel per day at best. In other words, your round-trip before range anxiety starts to set in is increased negligibly for a relatively high cost.
By way of reference, good consumer grade solar cells typically put out about 15 Watts per square foot, or 160 Watts per square meter. Keep in mind this is under ideal conditions. A Tesla Model S takes about 13,000 Watts to cruise at 55MPH, 20,000 Watts at 65MPH and 32,000 Watts at 80MPH. More if fully loaded.
At current technology levels, solar is good for one thing when it comes to automobiles: Keeping the battery from going flat during long periods of non operation. But you'll have to park it in full sun when you leave it in long-term parking ... don't pick that shady spot, and forget the garage.