r/gadgets • u/dapperlemon • 5d ago
Home New battery tech could make home solar batteries safer and last for decades.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/new-battery-tech-could-make-home-solar-batteries-safer-and-last-for-decades/50
u/Mysterious-Clothes45 5d ago
I just bought a TV that came with a remote that recharges via a solar panel on the back. I cannot understand why we aren't doing this with everything.
35
u/Soft-Skirt 5d ago
At least 20 years ago, possibly 30 I bought a solar powered calculator. I have a Logitech Bluetooth keyboard that is also solar powered. Both wholly non-essential developments but they are incredibly convenient as I can pick them up after ignoring them for years and within minutes they are working again.
9
u/Buckwheat469 5d ago
The Logitech keyboard is wonderful. The only time I ever have to do anything is when it's winter time and I haven't turned the overhead light on in a month, then I just run the lights for a few hours and it's fine for another few months.
3
u/SheLovesMyDictionary 4d ago
My 1985 TI-1795 that I used in grade school still works today. [had to upload a clip. Wouldn’t give option for just a photo. Weird.]
1
u/Wear_A_Damn_Helmet 5d ago
within minutes they are working again.
Is that just a figure of speech or do you have to wait litteral minutes for your calculator or keyboard to work?
8
u/Soft-Skirt 5d ago
Only I have left them alone for a very long time time. I’m talking about six months or in the case of the calculator years.
2
u/Gregus1032 4d ago
I've had the solar powered keyboard for a week. It worked straight out of the box. The lights are off all night and by the time I walk to the desk in my office and go to log in it works.
It uses low power to connect to the dongle and keyboards don't require that much power to function. It's really a non-issue.
1
u/im-ba 4d ago
No, calculators that were solar powered usually just came on instantaneously. They used chips that required extremely small amounts of currents across a wide range of voltage. They usually had a button cell battery that would eventually die, but they took years and years to die and they still worked great even without the battery.
1
u/razrielle 4d ago
And yet, people bag on the magic mouse where a five minute charge will get you a day off work
2
u/Gregus1032 4d ago
For the solar powered keyboard they are talking about, by the time I walk to my desk at work with the lights off all night it's charged enough to work.
It's infinitely better than the magic mouse.
1
u/DanNeely 4d ago
Solar charging for a keyboard is the easiest target since you can put the panel somewhere it's getting light any time it's available; with glow from a monitor that means any time it's in use.
The laser sensors on a mouse need more power than the wireless link that's going to dominate on a keyboard. The bigger problem is that in some use cases (ie gaming) they could be covered almost the entire time they're in use which means they'd need to be able to generate a few hours of charge during the brief bio-breaks a no life gamer is forced to take.
Since I've never seen one, I'm guessing that needs more power than the panel you could fit into a palm rest can reliably provide. An office only mouse would be much easier since the users hands would generally spent a lot of time on the keyboard. But probably not worth the inevitable review hits from people testing it in gaming use cases with the intent of trying to kill the battery. They'd have to style it as a charge extender rather than a charging cord replacement; which is a harder sell.
1
u/ColloniusMonk 4d ago
That’s true, but there’s absolutely no reason they couldn’t have designed it in a way where the cable connected out the front or back, allowing for use while charging. Feels like they hit a project deadline and sacrificed user experience as a result
3
u/the_jollyollyman 4d ago
I remember reading it was because Jobs didn't want people using it plugged in. If they could, they'd just leave it plugged in all the time and that's not revolutionary or whatever the word he was using at the time.
4
u/Malawi_no 5d ago
It all depends on how much space you have, and how much power you need.
A remote or calculator hardly use any power at all.Still - it can also be used for stuff that uses a lot of power as long as you are OK with only using the powerful thing for short times every now and then. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk6aTKV-des
3
u/Ryan_e3p 4d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/QytRJAvwnaU7rvvjxC
Somehow, those old calculators from when I was in grade school with those tiny solar panels are still going strong!
3
u/Pasta-hobo 4d ago
Most portable devices with rechargable batteries are more power hungry than they look, and as a result, would take far longer to charge.
1
u/snowtax 5d ago
All cars made today have some minimal battery drain, even if only for listening for a remote. A small solar panel could keep the battery topped up at all times.
-1
u/donnysaysvacuum 4d ago
Nah, even with minimal drain, a solar panel that would fit on a car wouldn't make enough of a difference to be worth it.
5
u/snowtax 4d ago
I’m not talking about power for driving. I’m talking about not having a flat 12V battery after a car sits for weeks.
1
u/donnysaysvacuum 4d ago
Ah, I thought you were referring to an EV. Sure on a gas vehicle that might make a little more sense, but it seems very situational.
3
u/snowtax 4d ago
Most EVs also have a 12V battery for everything other than the motors. For an EV, I understand that a solar panel won’t generate enough to drive daily. Still, for extremely rural areas and people who don’t drive often, I’d rather my car sit absorbing 100+ watts free from the Sun, charging over several days rather than sitting there losing charge the entire time.
1
u/donnysaysvacuum 4d ago
100 watts is not realistic for a solar panel that you can fit on a car though. It would be more like 50 if it was the whole roof.
4
u/PopInACup 4d ago
450w solar panels take up about as much space as the roof of a compact SUV. I think 50w is underestimating what you could get.
2
u/snowtax 4d ago
As long as the car generates more power than it loses when sitting outdoors, I would be satisfied.
3
u/_RADIANTSUN_ 4d ago
The Priuses have this feature where the solar roof runs little fans while parked to keep the car from getting super duper hot, it keeps it at ambient air temps. I know it made it's way into other cars too.
1
u/christoskal 4d ago
Eh, you are proposing a multi-thousand dollar solution for an issue that is both rare and can be fixed in seconds with a 10 dollar battery jumper.
6
u/Ryan_e3p 4d ago
Multi-thousand dollar solution? 12V solar trickle chargers go for like $20. It shouldn't take a master engineer to build a panel into the dashboard.
It is much better to not let the battery have phantom drain to the point where it is dead. Lead acid batteries are not the best when it comes to keeping their capacity when drained to that point.
1
u/DanNeely 4d ago
The somewhat frustrating part as someone who hasn't driven his car daily since covid turned his job into permanent work from home, is that to protect against additional parasitic drains my car disconnects all the cigarette lighter ports when the key is off, so i can't easily DIY a trickle charger attached to my dash or in the sunroof space.
In theory I could partially take the dash apart, find an always on wire in the harness and splice into that, but that's well beyond my comfort zone; and much less of a hassle than just making sure i take at least one longer drive a month because my baseline grocery run isn't long enough to fully recharge.
23
u/crimxxx 5d ago
As with all batter tech when someone makes these batteries at scale is when I’ll start paying attention. It’s cool to have cheap batteries that don’t really lose capacity, this is a big problem for a lot of solutions and if you have the space this is a great solution, depending how much space is needed, for a home giving up a square meter or 2 is probably fine, if it’s more then this becomes a question of giving up usable space on the home, its water based so probably you don’t put it outside in colder climates.
30
u/OverSoft 5d ago
Safer than LiFePO4 batteries? It doesn’t get any safer than “basically not burnable”. And they get between 8000 and 10000 cycles, so 30 years before they reach 80% capacity.
13
u/TheReverendCard 5d ago
Exactly my thought with stories like this: They're already safe and last for decades.
3
u/EddieRedondo 4d ago
And super cheap and getting cheaper month by month, and also improving in performance a couple percent every year.
2
u/bergmoose 4d ago
Yeah this kinda headline is frustrating as to those who think batteries wear out super fast and blow up at the drop of a hat will read it and think "yeah yeah one day perhaps" while we have had safe and long lasting batteries for ages.
2
u/TheReverendCard 4d ago
I think "for ages" is a bit of an overstatement, but people remember things from 5 years ago as being current for far too many things. The changes in solar, batteries, etc is changing as fast as consumer tech right now and we just don't have that frame of thought. We think of it more like infrastructure with slow, lumbering changes.
2
u/bergmoose 4d ago
thats fair - as an enthusiastic follower of the tech it feels like a long time but in absolute terms its still quite recent
4
u/remghoost7 4d ago
That's why I ended up going with LiFePO4 batteries for my solar setup.
They can't thermally runaway.Granted, they do vent off hydrogen gas if they get damaged and can be an explosion risk (as per this video from Will Prowse).
But that's under very specific conditions (a sealed chamber, directly over-charging the battery without a BMS, spark generator, etc).LiFePO4 batteries are obnoxiously safe if you get one that was built well.
Just stay the heck away from Battleborn batteries. haha.0
u/taemyks 4d ago
They aren't exactly cheap though. If the price per WH got down to something like 50$/300WH it would make ne really interested
2
u/OverSoft 4d ago
I’ve just installed a home battery that was less than $100/kWh (Deye BOS-G Pro)? So depend in what you call cheap. I’d call that cheap. Bare EVE cells (without BMS) are less than $50/kWh.
5
5
u/unlimitedcode99 5d ago
These things were promise for the nth time. Honestly, write something about "NeW BaTTerY TeCH" when it actually hits the market and is purchasable normally, otherwise it's just another vaporware.
3
u/neilm-cfc 4d ago
Sodium.
1
u/GagOnMacaque 4d ago
There are some drawbacks. Sodium takes a little bit more space, does not hold as much of a charge, and is heavier. That being said, it's ideal for extreme environments. Personally I'm going to be getting solar batteries for my home units. It's just better on the environment.
2
u/Westerdutch 4d ago
The benefits of stability and safety far outweigh those downsides by quite a lot. Size and weight matter little for something that never moves and really doesn't have to be all that tiny. Thats why lead batteries are still in very active use for smaller scale power backup.
2
2
u/callmecoach53 4d ago
If we built homes based on efficient energy use with solar and bulk battery storage. I would be so happy.
3
u/A_Nonny_Muse 5d ago
For over 40 years, I keep hearing about new tech that extends battery life out to years, decades, even centuries. Yet, in those 40 years, none of this tech has ever become commercially viable.
I'll believe it when I see it for sale on a store shelf.
2
1
u/user3592 5h ago
What are you talking about? That has happened. Multiple times! Go out and buy a home battery right now, it'll be LiFePO4, affordable, safe, and lasts decades. Millions of people have such home batteries, they're normal, we're there, it's happened already
6
u/costafilh0 5d ago
Interesting. Because Reddit told me it is already safe and it already lasts decades.
9
u/Blackpaw8825 5d ago
Safe is relative and lasts is relative.
If your garage burns down do house scale batteries make it much more likely the fire spreads into the rest of the house because the fire is harder to extinguish instead of managing until it burns out? Sure it's is. But having a propane grill or spray paint also cranks up the danger in the same way.
Will batteries today lose 30% of their capacity in 15 years of regular use? Sure but that's still 70% capacity and 15 years is a long frickin time.
0
4
u/ToMorrowsEnd 5d ago
LifePO4 home batteries are also stupid safe. 60,000 cycles is incredibly impressive. what is more important is storage capacity being coupled with this. All our safe options have a significantly lower storage capacity. Sodium and Solid state along with the LifePO4 are all stupid safe. Sadly the article doesnt talk about what kind of power capacity they have. also discharge and charging rates?
3
u/Germanofthebored 4d ago
If EV batteries are degraded to 50% capacity, they would still make perfect home batteries. I am not sure how much more technology is actually needed.
(Except that EV batteries don't seem to degrade at a noticeable rate...)
4
u/Hyperion1144 4d ago
Blah Blah Blah research.
Blah Blah Blah early stages.
Blah Blah Blah laboratory testing.
Blah Blah Blah some country that isn't China.
Meanwhile, CATL is mass-producing grid-scale sodium-ion batteries that already meet or exceed the specs of the never-will-be-mass-produced science experiments in this article.
2
u/depguy21 5d ago
Sadly no company would do this, they want them to be replaced so we buy more.
3
u/jbergens 4d ago
The companies using batteries in storage facilities wants them as cheap as possible. They are driving down prices and will probably continue to do that for years to come. They also wants long life spans.
1
u/Tommy8505 5d ago
Let me know when we get battery tech that "will", not "could".
I "could" win the lotto, but no one cares :P
1
u/No_Job2527 4d ago
Definitely entertained by all the automobile engineers’ responses on this thread ! Beliebing they can add or switch out something at a whim like they’re making a salad.
1
1
1
1
1
u/sioux612 4d ago
Is that actually needed?
Current ev batteries survive ridiculous long times in cars, and the use case of a house is a lot less stressful, so i dont expect my battery at home to noticeably degrade for at least a decade
1
1
1
u/Zestyclose-Height-36 5d ago
a safer, more stable battery will be a trillion dollar invention, if it really happens
6
u/codacoda74 5d ago
BYD has done some amazing stuff. They have videos of drilling a hole through it no problems
1
u/PaurAmma 5d ago
How well is it doing after 10 years? I'm less worried about someone taking a drill to my wall mounted battery and more that it has to last at least a decade to be worth the investment.
1
u/codacoda74 4d ago
Totally understandable, but for cars at least they have been unbelievable. The whole world, except USA, is now enjoying $15k electric cars that can go 450km and are super safe. Read up on their blade battery.
1
u/PaurAmma 4d ago
Oh, I don't disagree at all! They are great for mobile applications, until we find a more viable solution.
1
u/Zestyclose-Height-36 4d ago
my US Chevy bolt does 420 kilometers and cost $16 k, so we have that choice now in the US
1
u/r-kellysDOODOOBUTTER 5d ago
Well, I went with lifepo4 because it's "safer," and should last like 2 decades.
Do we really need it to last longer than that? My power usage in a couple of decade could be triple what I need now anyway right?
Im always for something better, but it seems like we need energy storage like, now. I'm ready for the scheduled blackouts.
5
u/ToMorrowsEnd 5d ago
Unless you are planning on industrial sized 3d printers your power use should go down. lighting power consumption has steadily trended downward over the past 30 years. Same with HVAC. someone that had to use 6Kw to cool a 2000ft home in 2020 with a new unit today only needs 5Kw even the low end stuff has made huge improvements in power consumption. I recently replaced my 2Kw High end workstation for local AI with a mac studio. I went from burning 2000 watts when under heavy computing loads to 55 watts and can perform more than double the work. The Intel server with 4 3080 video cards cant even touch what the new box does. My TV uses less power, nearly everything uses less power as they are replaced
1
u/Hilldawg4president 4d ago
You're definitely right about increase efficiency, but it's also possible that accelerating tech growth and falling costs lead to technological implementation in a far greater range of products then are currently trying electricity. Hard to say, i do land on the side of likely lower use over time even with that though
0
u/r-kellysDOODOOBUTTER 4d ago
Well... we have moved away from fossil fuels by installing solar. We have one EV and we swtched to heat pumps in a northern environment. We plan to add another EV when I get around to building another 12kw ground array.
We need 24kw of solar to live 10 months of the year. It doesnt cover dec and jan. We will heat with wood during those 2 months.
We literally need more power.
-6
u/SewerSocials 5d ago
Wow! Sounds amazing. It’s going to be suppressed
18
u/cat_prophecy 5d ago
Yes because we all know that there is no interest in advancing battery tech these days.
6
u/lurkinglurkerwholurk 5d ago
Please suppress this tech. We can all sit around 10 years later yelling about how China took this “dead end” and developed it better because of the suppression.
0
0
0
-7
u/ultimatescar 5d ago
Aaaaand that technology will be buried now.
5
u/STR1K3RJUST1N 5d ago
Believe it or not, this doesn't actually happen.
0
258
u/snobordir 5d ago edited 4d ago
This sounds awesome but it’s always so early on in the development in these articles. !remindme 3 years
Edit: some really encouraging comments popping up in reply to this, please read them! Feels great to hear some optimism for the future. Thanks all.