Even though winter isn’t generally known for sun, a beefy array of Christmas lights will always run up your electricity bill.  These solar powered lights might be a great alternative for those on a budget but not willing to cut out the holiday cheer.  However, the cost of this expensive item may really  outweigh the potential savings on your electric bill.  On sale now for $65 per 102 light strand.

Unlike standard outdoor holiday lights that must be tethered to an electric source, these solar powered lights can be strung anywhere in your yard. A small solar panel stakes into the ground up to 7′ away from the light strand and powers 102 bright LEDs for up to nine hours after an eight-hour charge. Seven different light patterns dance along the strand in succession, or you can select your favorite sequence to flash continuously or have the lights provide steady illumination with the touch of a button. The solar panel gathers moderate or direct sunlight during the daytime and automatically turns the lights on at dusk and off at dawn. The 32′ 9″-long strand provides enough slack to adorn trees, railings, or lampposts. The LEDs are rated for 10,000 hours of operation.

[via RandomGoodStuff]

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In the past we’ve seen piezoelectric technology applied to flooring in train stations and mats to take advantage of people’s stepping power.  Now the technology is being applied to a home theater remote control developed by NEC and Soundpower.

How does it work you ask?  Instead of being powered by batteries, the remote harvests the kintentic energy of a pushed button and uses that to power itself, hence piezoelectric technology.  It’s not too often that my remote dies, but it would be great to have at least one self sustainable device.

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Have you ever left the house or the apartment, and been struck by the sudden horror that you didn’t turn off your stove or your toaster or your television or whatever?  Yeah, I’ve been there too once or twice.  And I know some people who’ve made an entire psychological disorder out of something like that.

Well, there’s a new gadget, currently in the prototype stage, called the PowerZoa.  The PowerZoa can be used to remotely cut power to any gadget plugged into an outlet.  Everything from your stove to your toaster can be suddenly, remotely, disabled.  The PowerZoa transmits details on power use to a secure website, which you can log into to remotely disable your gadgets.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that such a gadget could be used against you, but even so, what happens?  You unplug the PowerZoa and replug your appliance back into the wall.  For people who worry about leaving things on, this is a great device.

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In a day and age where more and more people have more and more gadgets that need constant power, there needs to be more ways to offset all of this energy use.  A new concept has made its way to the blogs in the form of Power Saving Outlets.

Simple enough, this design only requires you to rotate the outlet using the plug as you would turn a key in order to turn on the power.  While the idea is good enough, I can’t see this being all that safe for children, and most of the time your powerstrip is plugged into an outlet that isn’t all that easy to get to, making using this concept not so convenient.

What do you think?

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Still trying to figure out how to make your iPhone a tad greener and all the while not cluttering up your desktop?  The Regen’s Renu solar panel is a modular system that charges on its own and when the time comes, can be placed in one of their two docks to charge up the iPhone.  That means you don’t have to expose your iPhone to direct sunlight, potentially harming the phone’s fragile components.

Renu currently offers an iPod dock, which just does the usual or you can opt for the more expensive but heavier featured Sound Dock, which includes a set of speakers and a slot for Regen’s Renu solar panel, providing up to 8 hours of sound or power to your iProduct of choice. The Renu solar panel takes about 3.7 hours to charge in direct sunlight outside and 7.3 hours of ‘direct sunlight indoors’.

Regen’s iPod Dock and Renu Solar Panel will ship next February for $249, while the Sound Dock will ship April 2010 for $149 (that price doesn’t include the $199 Renu Solar Panel).

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Perfect for your alpine lodge getaway, the Magno Wooden Radio will keep you and your bearskin rug company on those cold nights alone.  Handcrafted using untreated Indonesian ebony, mahogany, and pine, this little guy is quite the stunning beauty.

Besides boasting superior FM/AM quality, this wooden radio also has an input for your MP3 player and runs off of 4 AA batteries or an AC adapter.  Weighing only 2lbs, this retro modern marvel will cost you $200.

[via TechFresh]

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If there was ever an Xbox 360 Motorcycle here it is.  On show at Japan’s Tokyo Motor Show, the Yamaha EC-f is an electric motorcycle/scooter that sports a lightweight aluminum frame, a lithium-ion battery and a 0.6 kWh electric motor.  Best of all the EC-f uses a standard plug that works with any AC outlet. 

It looks like there is an EC-fs model, but I can’t find the specs on that.

[via Inhabitat]

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The folks out at Dell have given us a pretty sweet gadget to check out.  Now, chances are, you’ve heard about a LOT of solar powered whatnot, especially right here.  And some of it is pretty strange.  Solar powered jackets, solar powered cars…well, now Dell’s going to bring you what may be the strangest solar powered device of all.

The solar powered parking lot.

I kid you not, ladies and gentlemen–Dell has put together a series of solar panel-laden paviliions in its parking lot designed to provide not only shade to the cars beneath in the hot sun, but also to take that sun and convert it into electrical energy by which employees can charge, at no cost to them, their plug-in hybrids and full-on electric vehicles.

The equivalent of free gas is a pretty nifty perk, and the crew out at Dell has to be feeling some love off of this one.

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I’m stunned to be able to even discuss this, but apparently, Toshiba’s Dynario actually represents the first ever fuel-cell gadget charger.

If you take a fuel cell filled with methanol and ambient oxygen, and inject it into a charger package about the size of your palm, the combination of methanol and oxygen interacts with a lithium-ion battery inside the charger to power the battery and discharge sufficient juice to power TWO cell phones.  This means that most of your typical portable gadgets can now, thanks to Toshiba’s Dynario, be powered by a mix of air and chemicals.

Toshiba claims it takes the battery fully twenty seconds to charge after injecting the gas mix into the charger, and the costs on this beauty aren’t too steep for what you get.  The charger itself runs roughly $325, while the fuel cells themselves go for about $35 for a pack of five.  Oh, sure, it’s not exactly Rayovac Renewal battery affordable, but for a fast and easy charge that runs on thin air?  It’s not a terrible price.

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If you’ve ever found yourself out hiking in the back end of beyond and come up against an emergency–a broken leg, a lost map, a witch chasing you and your friends, a family of inbred mountain people who think your girlfriend looks tastier than a twelve-course buffet, you know what I’m getting at–without a charged cell phone, then you’re going to love what I’ve got here.

It’s called the Solio Emergency Charger, and for $60, it’ll give you a little extra punch of power that fits in a backpack.  It’s a slightly downsized for travel version of the Solio charger, and though it takes twenty hours in direct sunlight to achieve maximum charge, it still offers that little extra spark of juice when you need it most.  It comes with USB adapter, charging cable, 12v adapter and universal tip cable to make sure all your gadgets get their bump.

It’s a pretty smart idea, even if twenty hours is a pretty long time and represents almost two full days you’d have to spend in the woods waiting for it to get full charge.  By then, the inbred mountain people will have already finished your girlfriend and have started wondering if you served with mint would make a better dessert or appetizer.

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Nowadays, saving energy is quickly becoming common sense as opposed to forward thinking.  More and more tech consumers are aware of vampire power and and there are plenty of products out there to combat this unnecessary use of energy.

Having recently been introduced to the TrickleStar products, I have found them to be easy to use as well as being relatively easy on the wallet.  What I can say right away is that you are not going to see a noticeable difference in your electric bill.  Not unless you are using a ton of them.  You’d really have to have your whole residence outfitted in order to see your bill go down.

Now that’s not to say that every little bit doesn’t count for something.  I’m sure it does work to prevent vampire power, you just have to have faith and believe in the product.  To help with that faith, the TrickleStar PC Energy Saver and Switch look very consumer friendly using a brilliant white glossy plastic and an attractive logo.

To explain what the TrickleStar PC Energy Saver and switch does is quite basic.  It limits the amount of stand-by power your computer and peripherals draw from the wall outlet when not in use.  When you power down or put to sleep your Mac or PC, the energy saver is activated.  Without the switch, the energy saver is automatically set into use upon shut-down, whereas you have manual control when you have the switch integrated with in the set-up.  I really have no idea why this wasn’t one product, but I’ll save that for gripe time.

The set-up process is really easy as well.  All you do is plug the energy saver into the wall and then plug the power strip containing your PC/Mac and all its peripherals (Scanner, Printer, USB Hubs) into the female end.  From there you plug the USB end into any port that reaches your computer.  The switch is the middle man between you computer and the energy saver and uses female and male USB plugs to make that connections.  Super easy.

I have a MacBook laptop so I am often using my computer away from my hard drives, USB hubs, and iPhone dock.  The TrickleStar PC Energy Saver and Switch worked perfect for this.  All I had to do was flip the switch and my whole surge protector  and hard drives were shut down.  The switch itself denotes power through a bright green LED.  For more permanent set-ups, the Energy Save plug is mountable and the Switch has a peel adhesive.

Simple as that, my only problem with these products is that they are not one product.  There’s really no need for this and it is much more practical to power your gear down manually, especially when using several chained hard drives.

Beyond that, the TrickleStar products work as advertised and will cost under $30 for the pair.  If you are looking for a way to assure yourself that your computer set-up is not wasting energy I strongly suggest you give these products a try.

Pros:

• Easy Set-Up
• Attractive Aesthetic
• Saves Energy

Cons:

• Products should be combined as one package
• No real way to prove it works without the help of MythBusters

Buy the TrickleStar PC Energy Saver Plug Here For $17!

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EZ Grill, easy review.  So even though America is wholly embracing this green revolution for the most part, throwing stuff away is still a huge part of our culture.  To add to this national pastime comes the EZ Grill, a portable and disposable solution for those looking to grill on the go.

The whole set-up of the grill is painfully simple in the “why didn’t I think out that” way.  In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the idea didn’t originate from some serial griller’s DIY project.

The EZ Grill has four parts.  It takes an aluminum foil pan with primed charcoal dipped in mineral oil with an ignition cloth inside, and covers it with a metal grate.  That’s it.  EZ really can’t be spelled in any other way in this case.

I brought the EZ Grill on a rafting trip down the Clackamas River in Oregon, outside of Portland.  We used it to cook shrimp and chicken kabobs and they tasted great.  The only thing I can say is that like any other grill you have to give the charcoals enough time to get appropriately hot before you try a cook food over them.

The grill itself is designed to last up to an hour and a half of total charcoal burn time.  We used ours for about an hour.  What would make this grill better would be if it was somehow totally biodegradable.  I know that the makers of EZ grill have gone to great lengths to eco-friendly as possible but some effort still must be had to dispose of the EZ Grill properly.  We did manage to find a trash can alongside the river but not everyone will be as responsible as we were.

At a really low price I can recommend this grill for anyone who doesn’t own a small gas or charcoal grill.  This would work well for small one night camping trips or other type scenarios such as tailgaiting.

EZ Grill is now available at your local retailer and you can also purchase them in bulk at EZ Grill’s Website.

Pros:

• It’s an easy grill
• Long burn time
• Eco-Friendly
• Cheap

Cons:

• Not Biodegradable

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Hey ladies–got a question specifically for you today.  How do you feel about the thought of a solar powered purse?

This isn’t some weird environmentalist joke–this is actually a purse that generates electricity from a layer of dye-sensitized solar cells.  Dye-sensitized solar cells are thin, cheap solar cells that can be built into most any article of clothing relatively inexpensively.

It’s not that they work really well, though–you’ll have to leave your handbag in the sun for four to five hours before you can generate juice sufficient to recharge your cell phone, but this is one of those cases where you can just sort of shrug and say, hey, free power.

The bags are a little on the pricey side, though.  They’re looking to bow in the $100-300 range, which is only slightly more expensive than your typical handbag. Plus it offers the whole solar-power option, which is awesome no matter how you slice it.

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Solar powered house, anyone?

Anyone looking for the house of the future should take note of the Solar Decathalon currently taking place at the National Mall in Washington DC.  This event brings together college students from around the world to build a house, no larger than eight hundred square feet, that runs entirely on solar power.  Everything from hot water heaters to power had to come from the sun, and the resulting houses are downright impressive.

Team Ontario, for instance, built what amounts to a giant glass cube that produces fully double its own power needs, allowing the homeowner to make a little extra cash selling the power back to the grid.  And frankly, they’ll need that little extra cash; these houses have an approximate street value of between $300,000 and $500,000.

If you’re out in the area, check it out.  The show runs through Saturday.

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Here’s a great piece for all you road warriors out there–the travel alarm clock is a great invention, especially when you don’t trust that cheap clock radio the hotel leaves by your bedside any farther than you can throw it.

But chances are you’ve run out of batteries for your travel alarm clock before.  And what do you do about that?  Hope you can find a store before you go to bed?  Try and recharge those batteries via any of a hundred methods?

How about just using a travel alarm clock that runs on water, like this one?  That’s right–water.  You fill up the reservoir with water, and an electrode inside converts the water into power for the alarm clock.  Best part?  This nearly completely self-powered clock runs a meager thirty dollars, if you’re interested in getting one.

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LG is coming out with an amazing new gadget that’ll quite possibly change the way you think about summer: the solar-powered e-reader.

This is actually a whole lot of amazing in one sentence, so I’ll try and break it down into more manageable chunklets for you.  One, an e-reader that runs entirely on solar power is an exciting development.  Reading a book outside in the spring–or in some cases, summer–sun has long been a popular activity, but now you can take a library outside with you and have your choice when you finally settle in under that tree and set out to read.

Two, this is one of the first e-readers to be powered by the sun, thus every other e-reader is now going to have a significant bit of competition on its hands.  None of the other e-readers are powered by free sunlight, you know.  And buying batteries over and over, or paying the power company to recharge batteries, will always lose out to free recharge.  Every time.

Three, a solar panel capable of powering a gadget by itself, and still be portable?  This might be the start of something new and different in the whole solar panel industry.  It might take an entire roof’s worth of solar panels to make a five thousand watt generator, but one panel running an e-reader?  That’s interesting.

The LG solar e-reader represents several significant strides forward, and hopefully, we can get our hands on them fairly soon.

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Gardening and horticulture are fastly becoming new hobbies for thousands of Americans embracing this powerful green movement and many of them may be very interested in what Olga Kalugina has created.

The FlowerPot Eye is a sort of X-Ray flowerpot that not only shows the roots of your plant but vital information such as:  Light levels, humidity, and the current soil conditions of the plant.

Very futuristic looking indeed and I’m sure these would sell great here in Portland.

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The last thing I associate with clean water is charcoal, but what do I know anyway.  Apparently not much.  This eco-friendly charcoal water pitcher must be the first of it’s kind to use Japanese Iouseki stones and Binchotan charcoal to purify and deodorize the water, making it mineral-rich and odor free.  Crazy!

The stones and charcoal should last up to 6 months under normal use and the pitcher itself is constructed from glass.  Looks like a stellar gift idea for the budding wellness freak no doubt.  The whole thing should cost around $94 with replacement stones and charcoal running at $21.  On sale now.

[via TheGreenHead]

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If you’re anything like me, you’ve got an old cell phone or two laying around the house and you’re about dying to get rid of it.  But you’ve got no idea where or how to dump it.  We all know there are loads of hazardous material laws to grapple with, and those collection drives expect you to pay to dump your hardware.

Enter the EcoATM, a device the size of an actual ATM that’ll let you dump your hardware quick, easy, and sometimes, profitably.  Simply drop your old phone or other device into the EcoATM’s slot, and the machine will determine if it has any value.  The machine will then make you an offer for the device, which it will pay off from a separate slot, usually in the form of a gift card.

What if your device is worthless, you say?  Not a problem–there’s no such thing as a worthless device to the EcoATM.  Even if it has no residual value, you’ll still be able to leave the device with the EcoATM, but you’ll also get a “freebie item”, plus EcoATM will arrange for a tree to be planted in your honor somewhere, which still beats having to pay off the collection people all hollow.

EcoATM is actually doing pretty well so far–its first day in operation netted 23 phones and passed out a full hundred bucks in gift cards.  Word is it got a BlackBerry Curve in prime condition.  So chances are, this prototype will likely be coming to an electronics store near you.

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Chances are, by now, in this age of “going green”, you’ve heard the old water control aphorism, “If it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down”.  Now, most people don’t like the thought of letting “yellow” sit in their bowl for any much longer than it takes to flush in the first place, but now, we no longer need to “let it mellow” like insane hippie flower children.

Gadgets once again come to the rescue of decent people’s toilet hygiene, folks, with the Brondell Perfect Flush.  This device allows you to select a VARIABLE flush level, using a full flush for denser jobs and a “partial flush” for the lighter-weight material.

It’s entirely possible to reduce your water use between from thirty to fifty percent with the Brondell Perfect Flush, and the gadget itself only costs $99, so there’s a great chance this will pay for itself within a fairly short timespan.  It’s also promised to work with just about every toilet on the market, so there’s a good chance you can make these savings work for you right away.

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