Green apps and gadgets: sunshine solar charger
Each week our fearless reporter tries out a different green gadget or app. This week it's the turn of a solar charger cleverly disguised as a vase of flowers. But can it really charge up a smartphone or tablet?
A fantastically simple idea: a 2600mAh lithium battery, rechargeable via sunshine or laptop, which stores enough energy to charge a phone or tablet. It's designed to look like a vase of flowers, but with solar panels where bees would usually gather to pilfer pollen.
Last week's ecogadget, the waterpebble, was criticised for its "embodied emissions"; some argue the carbon emissions from manufacturing it might outweigh the reductions it advertises. A bit like flying celebrities to the Live Earth concert by private
But the Sunshine solar charger sidesteps that accusation nicely; it's made of 45% bio-based material derived from plants rather than oil. Apparently, that means it reduces CO2 emissions by 35% compared to a product made entirely of plastic. The biomaterial is made of corn residue – which is, frankly, a stroke of genius. If someone were to lock me in a room full of corn residue until I could come up with a use for it (why anyone would do that to me I don't know, but for argument's sake), I can safely bet "make a solar charger" would never cross my mind.
Online reviewers haven't made up their minds yet
This is a product so brand spanking new, there are no online reviews to be had yet – at the time of writing, anyway. You might be reading this at some sparkling future time when the Online Reviewer Army have got this product sussed out and sewn up.
This is a product so brand spanking new, there are no online reviews to be had yet – at the time of writing, anyway. You might be reading this at some sparkling future time when the Online Reviewer Army have got this product sussed out and sewn up.
But, for now, you've only got me to rely on.
The minus points
• It doesn't work brilliantly in poor light, and the British sky offers little else. After a full day by a large window, it charged my phone about halfway, but gave up after moments with my iPad mini. I'm hoping now the weather is brightening up, it will pull its socks up.
The minus points
• It doesn't work brilliantly in poor light, and the British sky offers little else. After a full day by a large window, it charged my phone about halfway, but gave up after moments with my iPad mini. I'm hoping now the weather is brightening up, it will pull its socks up.
And the plus points
• Gorgeous design, and looks lovely on a desk or windowsill.
• Gorgeous design, and looks lovely on a desk or windowsill.
• You can charge it from your laptop (if you can get on board with the idea of charging your charger), so it's not rendered completely useless in winter or at night.
• It's changed my behaviour already. I always thought of smartphone charging as a tiny partaking of electricity, not a massive – and relatively new – collective drain on our resources. After this experiment, I'm trying not to "top-up charge" devices with frequent sips of energy – my devices can jolly well wait until they're thirsty.
• The sun really is an underused resource. Millions of devices charging on a daily basis add up. Nigel's Eco Store warns, "1.4 billion smartphones are charged every day, and this quantity is growing. To charge all of these mobile phones we need an energy capacity equivalent to that needed to supply a city of 450,000 homes." While the sun sits there, bone-idle.
In summary:
It's attractive, and good for a charge boost, but I suspect it would have to be gloriously sunny to be able fully charge all your devices day in, day out. But who cares if it isn't perfect yet? One day, we'll be able to recharge our tablets in half a second, or the Willy Wonka of electronics will bring out the everlasting battery, and that will be great. Today's solar chargers are a prototype of future wonders. It's a reduction in your energy use, and that's a start – and, dammit, it looks like flowers.
The sunshine solar charger is available fromNigel's Eco Store for £94.99.
Interested in finding out more about how you can live better? Take a look at this month's Live Better challenge here.
The Live Better Challenge is funded by Unilever; its focus is sustainable living. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. Find out more here.
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