This is certainly one of those ideas, which makes you think, “Ah! Why didn’t I think of that?”
In a brilliant display of innovation and use of technology, an Indian designer, Sayalee Kaluskar has created a unique Ray Ban Sunglasses, which can tap solar power when used out in the sun. When you feel that your iPhone needs power, then simple remove the arms of the sunglasses, and plug it in directly into your iPhone to charge it with pure solar power.
Sayalee Kaluskar has partnered with Ray-Ban to create such solar powered sunglasses, which can act as a power source for your iPhone. She has named it Ray-Ban Shama Shades. This was part of a student project at Miami Ad School in San Francisco.
‘Shama’ is an Urdu word, meaning lamp or candle.
How Does It Work?
The arms of standard Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses have been modified to carry photovoltaic cells within them; which is wired to a small battery hidden inside the plastic cover. Now, when you wear sunglasses out in the sun, then these photovoltaic cells get charged up, soaking up solar power directly from the sun. This solar power is silently transferred on to the battery.
When the sun goes down, and you need power for your iPhone, simple remove one of the arms as it has been designed to get detached easily. Once detached, you can see a MicroUSB connector which can be plugged into your iPhone directly, giving it a power boost without using electricity.
Ray-Ban Shama Shades – Intro Video
The Challenges
The first and foremost is the quantity of power it can store. The sunglasses have tiny solar panels, which can absorb only limited quantity of solar power. And iPhone or any other smartphone consumes lots of battery power. Whether this solar powered sunglasses can provide that much energy to your smartphone is the raging issues right now.
Another issue is the time taken by solar panels to get recharged by sunlight. Unlike a direct current source, solar power takes time to transfer energy from one source to the other. In case there is cloud and rain all over the place, these solar panels cannot be used optimally for storing solar power.
However, challenges are always there, and we are sure that if more brains work on this idea, then these challenges can be countered easily.
Having said that, we believe that this simple yet powerful idea has the potential to transform energy woes of smart phone users for ever! Unfortunately, this idea has not yet been picked up by major manufacturers or mobile companies.
We hope that this awesome idea gets materialized and we can use solar power to solve energy crisis. What is your view on this amazing idea?
[…] Snapdeal to encourage and promote solar powered products; an Indian innovator has designed a unique solar powered sunglasses which can charge […]
[…] we had reported some other unconventional methods to charge a phone such as shoes, sun glasses and […]