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Hong Kong Company Develops Solar-Powered Lightbulb
hussain_mkj writes "A Hong Kong-based company, Nokero, has introduced what it claims is the world's first solar powered lightbulb. Nokero is trying to replace traditional kerosene lamps in developing countries with its solar-powered N100 LED lightbulbs. The bulb is about the same size as normal incandescent bulbs, and will shine for two hours when charged for a day. The company claims that the new bulb is five times as bright as a kerosene lamp and uses 1/200th the energy. It will cost $15 for one and $480 for 48."
That's as ridiculous as screen door on a battle ship.
Seriously how many light bulbs to you have where there is sunlight hittinng the top of the bulb regularly?
You can get the 48 light deal and setup a grid of lights to provide night time lighting for six hours and you won't have to pay the electricity bill.
But will anyone in the developing countries know or care about this?
Eat sleep die
the damn light bulb can charge itself continuously from its own light output!
Well, considering that these: http://www.siliconsolar.com/solar-garden-lights.html, have been around for many years, I think 'first' is a bit of a stretch. They may have made them CHEAPER, and longer lasting, or more useful, but certainly not FIRST.
Isn't this the exact same thing as the exterior lights people stick in the ground along their steps and walkways around their homes? They charge in the daytime and come on at night for a couple hours. This is just a slightly different form factor is all.
And I don't think it is accurate calling it a "lightbulb". It is a "bulb-shaped" electronic device, but it is not a bulb.
Better known as 318230.
I already have one. It's called a MIRROR.
I'd rather have the same brightness as a kerosene lamp for ten hours than five times the brightness for only two hours.
Seriously, how about solar powered other things like water boilers that everyone needs in developing nations. The bulb takes 1 day to light up for 2 hrs which does not seem like a lot and that too depends on the weather. Does it hold it's charge for long? I think bulbs are cheap anyway, are not power-consuming monsters and GE already has cheaper and relatively more energy efficient bulbs out. It could be used in disaster-struck areas, that is a good point, but I have seen people come out with generator trucks for such areas and/or people getting rescued and taken to an area with power too. But it could still make things easier and we could soon see food packets with solar bulbs dropped in such areas :).
$15 is likely a month or more salary in most undeveloped countries.
Now that's what I call a bright idea!
But they are afraid of Chuck Norris. So is the dark.
I'm still awestruck by the novelty of this invention. Who would have ever thought to combine a solar cell, light bulb and battery to produce a solar powered lantern. I mean its not like you could just waltz into your local hardware store and...oh wait..
"The LEDs are meant to last 50,000 to 100,000 hours, and the solar panels are rated to last 10 years. The life of the N100 is basically 5 to 10 years, according to Nokero representative"
Leave it to the "Nokero representative" to conviently skip over the part about where they disclose how often the batteries need to be replaced.
But this lamp seems least useful where it would be most needed - where days are short, nights are long, and the weather uncooperative.
Can Lightbulbs Be Made To Work When They're Off?
I have owned a couple of Boglights for a few years now and they've been solidly reliable. They can last up to 6 hours on a days charge, they work as both a flashlight and an area light, they give 6 levels of light, and are designed for developing countries. However, they cost twice as much, $30 a light. This page has a lot of technical information about them, http://www.bogolight.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=BOGO-BUYONESN2&Show=TechSpecs
During the day you hang it from the metal clip on a branch (with no foliage) or a string (like a washing line). Or, simply place it on a safe surface somewhere that catches the sun.
At night you either hang it from the metal clip or screw it in. By the picture, it looks like there is a black "on" button at the top that may work such that screwing it in further switches it on (would have to remove the clip though).
Ikea was selling a $19.99 solar reading lamp that if you bought one, one was sent to Africa. Even if they didn't make a profit, that means the light cost significantly less than $15 dollars individually. Plus the LED is bright and lasts six hours easily.
Diplomats adjust terms to keep from offending nations where people have little income and limited freedom. During the cold war there was the 1st world (NATO, neutral western Europe, Japan), 2nd world (Warsaw Pact), and 3rd world (everyone else). Late in the cold war, 3rd world was replaced by developing nations to counter the Soviet goal of creating Communist revolutions, and indicate the new US policy economic development (replacing the anti-Communist strongman policy). After the cold war saw the creating of the emerging economies (BRIC {Brazil, Russia [after deflating the CIA myth of a Soviet economy as large as the US], India, and China}, Asian tigers {primarily South Korea and Singapore} and former purgatory countries {South Africa [Aparthid] and Israel [peace treaty with Egypt]. The former 1st world is now called developed. So now we have Developed, Emerging and Developing. Of course people closer to the academic world will know the newest buzzwords.
a window?
Just what I was wondering. How long will the battery last? 2 years? Miserable battery life is my number 1 complaint about UPSes.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Wait, since these bulbs also give off light, if you use the light from the solar-charged bulb to charge more bulbs, you can then use those bulbs when the first one goes out, and use the second round of bulbs to re-charge the first round, ad infinitum! Suck on that von Mayer!
There's got to be a joke in here somewhere.
Gotta love slashdot. Light bulbs running on sunlight! Transistors working when they're off! Lying about the lie detector!
What next? Honest politicians? Transparent intelligence organisations? Intelligent news consumers?
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
I heard this one before, it's by the same inventors of the submarine screen-door right?
i'm not kidding
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2482/are-camp-lanterns-radioactive
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I mean come on: 15$ is more than many people for whom this is targeted make in a whole month. It might be nice tech and all, but the ones that would profit most from this won't have the the money. Looks more like a 'feel good' product for people in the rich developed world.
As someone posted in the article's comments, there is already a cheaper, better-designed, and longer-lasting product already in-use in the developing world.
What would really make this light a leap forward, is if they also provided a USB port for recharging phones.
Alot of people in rural areas have to go far away to recharge their cellphone. Being able to do it at home, on the cheap, rolled into an item they already buy, would make a sweet deal even sweeter. And it's likely that one day's output of this device would equate to several days of standby.
1) Solar powered sun tanning machine
2) Small petrol engine ear aid recharger for deaf people
3) manually powered pushbike
4) Ball of string to do away with the need for lights
5 times as bright as a kerosene lamp? For $15? Why is it then, that other LED lightbulbs with a comparable brightness and no solar powered extras cost $50+ each?
Not only did you move the goalposts, it's not even the same game any more. Seriously, WTF?
By you logic, Australia would be part of the 3rd world.
What has the 3rd world ever done to you to deserve that?
The term is indeed pretty flexible and highly political. Animal Planet has all these "animal cop" shows. Sometimes very hard to see the difference between a show in South Africa/England and the US of A.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Ok, first of all, it's not a light bulb, it's LEDs. Secondly, it's not the first, solar powered light has existed for decades! Third, I hope they didn't get a patent for the idea of combining solar cells with LEDs.
Just look at it. The design has abysmal panel coverage. Do note that there seems to be a couple mm of margin around the solar panel within the area covered by the clear plastic meniscus. They could have rather trivially increased the panel coverage by a factor of two, and with a bit more sweat it could have been 3x larger. I'd also like to see how they waterproofed the switch's operator (the black button protruding on top). It's not a trivial task, as not only you get water going straight down onto the switch, but also you get dirt from your fingers that will act to eat away any O-ring-like seal arrangements.
I'd also like to know what sort of power conditioning electronics do they use to charge the rechargeable cells, and to extract power from them. Designing efficient micropower power converters is quite an undertaking if you don't have an engineer who has done that once or twice (and done it well).
Having seen the abysmal design of common solar-powered garden lights, I don't really have high hopes. Now if anyone wonders: your typical $3.99 garden light sucks at power conversion efficiency. And by sucks I mean it's underperforming by 60%+. And the cell life is shortened as well: it's hard to maintain cell life without a power converter when all you have for energy source is PV cells.
Jim Williams should tackle that one and write it up in an app note ;)
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
It's a neat idea but I don't think it's a new idea.
How about they make it run for 5 times longer at a fifth of the brightness? Half the world would put these things up in their driveway.
What's different about these? This sort of thing has been available in garden and landscaping shops for years.
Is this thread a test to solve the classical question, how many slashdotters you need to comment on a light bulb exchange?
So get more than one light bulb per room and use the next when the first runs out.
..........FULL STOP.
Are you sure it wasn't a POLISH company that invented the solar powered light bulb ??
...what, they've also created a sunscreen that is activated in the shade?
I have a neighbor that has those solar powered bulbs on a spike all over his lawn. I guess both he and Home Depot are unaware that these bulbs are not on the market yet.
If you can cheaply offer alternatives to expensive electricty grids, that could be a boon to the 3rd world. Cellphone technology is popular for precisely that reason.
MIT Researchers Develop Wind Powered Fan!
Four hours of light is better than none, but LED lights generally suck for much else besides spot lighting. Good idea; needs improvement.
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
reminds me of these novelty maps:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/lights/994a/
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
I have had these for years in my yard. You can buy them at home depot and they last a lot longer than 2 hrs.
Top post! Made my day early - "works best at night dept." Thank you :)