[HN Gopher] Could solar-powered headphones be the next must-have?
___________________________________________________________________
Could solar-powered headphones be the next must-have?
Author : adrian_mrd
Score : 21 points
Date : 2022-10-17 20:19 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| gw99 wrote:
| I didn't know BBC were running adverts these days...
| _-_-__-_-_- wrote:
| That was my first thought as well. It will be interesting to
| see future applications of this technology. If they can get the
| costs down and the charging is actually efficient enough, it'll
| be worth it.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| bawolff wrote:
| Dont (non active noise cancelling) headphones already not use any
| power?
| flothebre wrote:
| thatguymike wrote:
| waterpowder wrote:
| And as always...
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
| superkuh wrote:
| No. The available surface area is too low.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Solar hats. The next must-have.
| aetherspawn wrote:
| We're not talking about powering a car here. Most headphones
| have a tiny tiny energy draw to maximise the energy of their
| tiny lightweight battery.
| mthomasmw wrote:
| 'Currently the tech can create one hour's worth of power "from
| just 20 minutes of English or Swedish summer sunshine".'
| LightG wrote:
| So ... 20 minutes use per year.
|
| Nice.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Presumably, it is referring to strength of sunlight at that
| latitude. 3:1 runtime to charge time for strong solar
| lighting really isn't bad at all if the cells are durable
| enough for a wearable item and the speakers don't suck.
| OJFord wrote:
| I think GP is joking about getting just 6m40s of sunshine
| per year in England/Sweden.
| agumonkey wrote:
| depends on what kind, you could have head-band style with thin
| film over the surfaces and low power in ear transducers, i'd
| probably buy none (granted the pv film doesn't degrade in a
| year)
|
| which reminds me that I regularly find old PV pocket calc, with
| I forgot what kind of oxide they used, still working fine..
| TOMDM wrote:
| From the article:
|
| "The solar-powered headphones still have a built-in battery
| that can power up to 80 hours of playback time. It is this that
| the Powerfoyle strip charges. Mr Fili says that currently the
| tech can create one hour's worth of power "from just 20 minutes
| of English or Swedish summer sunshine"."
|
| A very bold claim, I do wonder if that's with the strip placed
| optimally facing the sun, and not integrated into a headset.
|
| The idea of a solar jacket to keep a hikers satellite phone
| topped off sounds more attractive though.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| Back of the envelope calculations.
|
| Assume:
|
| * solar panel is about 1.5cm x 20cm = 0.003m^2 * Efficiency =
| 10% * solar insulation is 1000W/m^2
|
| Power = 0.3W
|
| In 20 min you gain, 0.3 _1 /3=0.1Wh of energy.
|
| Now, these Sony Headphones [1] have 30h life with a battery
| of 3.7V, 1200mAh [2]. This means they consume 3.7_1200m/30 =
| 0.148Wh per hour.
|
| Seems like claim is roughly in the ballpark.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0863TXGM3 [2]
| https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B08YQX76B1
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Summer sunshine is also like an order of magnitude more W/m^2
| than overcast winter day, at least up north.
| akamaka wrote:
| How powerful of a computing device could be powered by a small
| solar panel these days?
|
| We had solar powered calculators in the 1980s, but with chips
| being so much more energy efficient now, I imagine we could build
| a much more impressive device with no battery.
| syntaxing wrote:
| How often do people use their headphones outdoors? I would be
| very surprised if the average time outdoor over the lifetime of a
| headphone to be over 5%.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| Indoor solar powered devices have existed for decades (like
| calculators). The article even explicitly states that these can
| be charged from indoor light.
| teraflop wrote:
| Sure, there are pocket calculators that can run off of
| ambient indoor lighting, but they have to be designed to run
| on a truly _miniscule_ energy budget -- on the order of a
| fraction of a milliwatt.
| dspillett wrote:
| You seem to have missed the second sentence in what you
| replied to (and the relevant bit if TFA):
|
| _> The article even explicitly states that these can be
| charged from indoor light._
|
| These apparently can also gain useful charge from much
| smaller energy sources than direct sunlight, including
| typical indoor light levels. Even if it isn't enough to run
| them indefinitely, it could extend their run-time between
| plugged-in charges.
| teraflop wrote:
| No, I didn't miss it.
|
| You'll note, if you read carefully, that the article only
| says they can be charged from indoor light, which I don't
| doubt is true. It doesn't say they can get a _useful_
| amount of energy indoors. The only concrete numbers
| quoted are for direct sunlight, which is several orders
| of magnitude more intense than ambient indoor lighting.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> No, I didn 't miss it._
|
| It seemed so, or that you were ignoring it, from what you
| write. Perhaps offer more clarity in future to avoid such
| confusion.
|
| _> the article only says they can be charged from indoor
| light_
|
| The article says they can be charged from indoor light.
| Adding "only" there I think is needlessly negative. The
| article goes on to describe how this is expected/hoped to
| be useful, charging between uses even if (unlike direct
| sunlight) it is not enough to maintain power during
| prolonged use, which strongly implies a useful amount of
| energy if thought to be harvestable in typical indoor
| conditions.
| SteveGerencser wrote:
| I use headphones exclusively outside on our farm. All of the
| equipment makes a lot of noise and decent headphones help with
| the noise. And because my wife gets the 'new tractor' with a
| cab, radio, and AC, I get the 'old tractor' and get to sit out
| in the sun from sun up to sun down during hay cutting 3 or 4
| times a year. I've yet to have a pair of headphone last a full
| day. This could be cool and keep me from having to keep 3 pairs
| on hand.
|
| I freely admit that I am an outlier, but I'm used to people not
| understanding that a large segment of the popular leads totally
| different lives with totally different needs than most people.
| metadat wrote:
| The article states that the kind of PV charger they're using
| works under any light source, including artificial lighting.
|
| It's about half as efficient at converting light into
| electricity as current best rooftop panels, and these ones are
| way thinner.
| teraflop wrote:
| OK, but _efficiency_ at converting light into electricity
| doesn 't mean much if the _total_ amount of light available
| for conversion is very low -- which it is in almost all
| indoor situations.
|
| The illumination level in a brightly-lit office is typically
| on the order of 300 lux, compared to 100,000 lux for direct
| sunlight. (Residential spaces are often even dimmer.) So if,
| as they claim, this device can gain 1 hour of charge in 20
| minutes in direct sunlight, it would take on the order of 100
| hours to collect the same amount of energy indoors.
|
| The statement that "the panels can also create some power
| from artificial light" is technically true, but "some" is
| doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.
| metadat wrote:
| > this device can gain 1 hour of charge in 20 minutes in
| direct sunlight, it would take on the order of 100 hours to
| collect the same amount of energy indoors
|
| Depending how frequent and heavy of a user you are, the
| economics may work out such that they'll be passively
| charged enough and never require active charging.
|
| Related idea: It'd be cool if cellphones could charge in
| light whilst powered off. Then when they get old, they'll
| sit around and always be topped up and ready to go.
| OJFord wrote:
| I only use earphones, just because I find it more comfortable,
| but almost exclusively. I have no (extremely little) need for
| them indoors, I (almost always) prefer speakers there.
| [deleted]
| dmd wrote:
| I wear headphones constantly outdoors (walking/running) but
| can't recall the last time I had them on indoors. If I'm
| indoors I'm using good speakers.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| Depends on the person I guess? Or maybe how much time they
| spend walking. I used to use headphones almost exclusively
| while walking, and generally only used stereo speakers at home.
| I don't listen to anything while walking these days because I'm
| generally paying full attention to my pup, music would be an
| unwanted distraction. But I do see lots of other people wearing
| headphones while we're out walking. And I don't have that
| stereo anymore, I generally only use my MBP's built in speakers
| at home now. I _really_ don't like wearing headphones at all
| though.
| FrankTheDank wrote:
| The quicklook of these on LTT was pretty favorable. They actually
| seem pretty neat. I prefer earbuds for running though so not for
| me. Like the idea though
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-10-17 23:00 UTC)