Solar Panel Outdoor Furniture Interesting, But Is It Really Useful?
December 28th, 2007 Subscribe To Our Feed
An interesting news bit I read today…a company called SunTable has created a solar panel tabletop to be used outdoors. It’s supposed to help lure couch potatoes who would not normally spend time outside with the incentive of free electricity to run their laptop, TV or portable stereo. It’s claimed to run a laptop for 3 hours or a portable TV for 4 hours before needing recharging; tho’ I suppose that if it’s outside in the sun it would be charging continuously. Yes, it’s supposed to be weather resistant; although the makers do caution not to use it in the rain (hmmm, wonder why?).
It seems to my humble way of thinking that setting anything on the table like your laptop and papers (as I might like to do) would block the absorption of sunlight and impair charging; not to mention possibly damaging your laptop with the heat being generated by reflective solar panels. In my Southern neck of the woods the electronics would fry. And the price is, frankly, prohibitive - $3600! An interesting green idea that still needs work before marketing. You can see the SunTable at http://suntable.net.
