Your browser is out-of-date!

Update your browser to view this website correctly. Update my browser now

×

Solar-Powered iPod Speakers To See The Light

Startup company Regen is promoting solar-powered iPod-docking speaker systems and LED desk lamps as overcoming the practical drawbacks that prevent other solar-powered consumer electronics from gaining widespread appeal.

Many solar-powered consumer electronics products are not useful because they take too long to charge or do not provide enough hours of usage on a charge, said Robert Brunner, one of the company’s founders. “You can’t slap solar cells on something and expect it to work,” he explained.

With that in mind, Regen developed what is called a “Smart Architecture” platform that builds energy-efficient designs into the products and boosts usability in several ways. For one thing, the products plug into a home’s power outlets when their internal rechargeable batteries run low. For another, a weatherproof 9-inch by 9-inch ReNu solar panel can be removed from some of the products for placement near a window, or outdoors, to charge during the day. The panel can also be hung on a suction-cup hook stuck on the inside of a window. To simplify usage, the devices feature a display indicating how much the solar cells are charged and the percentage of battery life remaining before the device needs to get power from the electrical grid.

In direct sunlight outdoors or on a window that lacks UV protection or is not darkened, the ReNu panel takes eight hours to charge its own battery, and when docked with the company’s tabletop iPod speaker systems, it delivers four hours of playback time at moderate listening levels, the company said. A charged panel will also charge an iPhone in about 1.5 hours.

The products will be available through the company’s Web site, but Regen is also in discussions with a major on-line retailer and major national chain for February availability, said Brunner.

Products due in February are the $199 ReNu panel, the $149 tabletop ReNu Sound dock with small built-in speakers, and the $89 ReNu iPod dock, a charging stand without speakers. The iPod Dock will also be available with the ReNu panel in a $249 bundle.

They will be followed in March by an $89 LED desk lamp called the Side Light, which delivers up to four hours of light from a docked ReNu panel sold separately.

In April, a floorstanding iPod-docking speaker system, the ReVerb, is due at $2,299 with back panel covered with solar cells to deliver up to four hours of playback time at moderate listening levels after eight hours of charging in a sunny spot.

Around late spring, a boombox-style iPod-docking speaker system, the ReBop, will debut with carrying handle and solar cells, which will be embedded on its upward-facing back side. In late spring or early summer, another LED desk lamp will feature two independently swiveling leafs, one with LED light and the other with embedded solar cells.

Featured

Close