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A Solar Bag to Kick Off the Summer!!

Marine Boudeau — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 05:00:20 +0000

A solar bag I wanted to finish on Feb 13th for my girlfriend‘s birthday. I finally finished it about a month ago, based on the following how-to, found on her blog. The how-to was for the electronic part so it was fun to build a bag to support this solar system. This bag is not quite appropriate to summer temperatures because of its warm materials but it works and charge her mp3.

80% sewed by hands. 20% thanks to my magic sewing machine.

Her and the bag in Spanish Harlem, Manhattan.

I Want a Solar Watch (2/2), or any watch that does not run on batteries

Marine Boudeau — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 14:01:36 +0000

This post follows a previous post I Want a Solar Watch. After some disappointing research, I had promised I would come back with more… so here we go.

In the beginning, I wanted a good looking fierce watch that runs on solar power. After having seen what is being proposed to me, I now have to extend my research to all watches that do not run on batteries.

Note that I will not mention brands such as Seiko, Swatch or Orient, and others which are great but not what I am esthetically looking for.

Runs on Air

The UR-202 by Urwerk is the world’s first watch featuring a winding system regulated by compressing air utilizing miniature turbines. Its predecessor can be found around $40,000 so I am afraid to guess how much this one costs.

Kinetic or Automatic

I found one to my taste: the Bell & Ross 01-92 Carbon. Still too expensive for me, between $3,000 and $8,000.

Ventura has nice Automatic watches. I could not find their official website, only a reseller. Their prices are way too high.

I also liked the Ceramic Player shown below from Nixon at $1,400, automatic and has a self-winding mechanism. In the same collection, Elite, note the Capital Automatic and Zillamatic.

Vestal and its Fathom watch are closer to my budget at $336. Although it does look a little too classic.

Water powered

While there are many water powered clocks, I could not find one water powered watch… If you know about one, even still in prototype mode, feel free to share.

It seems it might have been more popular about 20 years ago. I found in fact people who bought it from Edmund Scientific’s for instance, but could not find it on their new website. Here more people talk about their knowledge of water powered watches. But nothing for today. Ebay also does not return any results.

Good news is Samsung is working on water-powered cell phones which might come out by 2010. So the water-powered technology for watches might come back soon on the market.

USB powered

I found a couple of brands and models (edge, xonix, Mr. Gadget, ) up to 4GB, but my favorite stays this one… but wait, it’s not out yet and might never be… There are in fact a couple of USB watch prototypes or concepts and so my winer is the iRiver, photo below. It also does MP3.

That’s all. Still unsure what I will get for myself. I might go towards one of the Nixon Automatics.

I Want a Solar Watch

Marine Boudeau — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 03:16:08 +0000

Ok so last week, I decided I want a solar watch. Since then, I have been dreaming about it. I want a modern, slick, minimalist and uncommon watch, powered by sunlight. You would think… well I was thinking it was going to be easy to find the product of my dreams.

First of all, how does a solar watch work?

[...] sunlight and artificial light are absorbed by a solar panel behind the crystal. The dial is either on a layer above or actually on the solar panel. This solar panel converts the light into electrical energy to power the watch. The watch will usually store energy in a rechargeable cell to power itself during the night or when covered such as by a person’s sleeve. Citizen’s watches use lithium-ion rechargeable cell to store sufficient energy to power the watch for several months/years of darkness. However, this figure assumes that the watch enters a power-saving mode during which the seconds hand stops until the watch is re-exposed to light.”

Source: Wikipedia

According to different sources, Solar watches were also very popular in the 80s with models for kids. If you are interested in vintage solar powered watches, you can check this link here. And if you want to learn the history of the solar wristwatches since the 70s, click here.

From what I have seen every solar watch uses lithium batteries, rechargeable for life. “Because watch batteries contain a small amount of mercury, [...] solar watch[es] [are] a green and non-toxic choice.” (Source: CBS News)

There are two main players in the solar watches market: Citizen and Casio.

All the Citizen watches are solar powered (eco-drive program) and when fully charged, can last for 180 days without being re-charged. Not a fan of their design especially as I don’t want to spend $795. My top budget is $200 and what Citizen has to offer at this price does not fit my aesthetics.

Casio offers the Casio Shock in several designs; very sporty look, not what I am looking for either.

Back to my search. There are many different watches available on the market, which incorporate the functions of a MP3 or 4 player, or of a USB device; HP is also working on a super cool communication watch device. But I am only looking for a simple solar watch.

Here are my solar watches findings:

	1. Healthy Sky Limited sells solar powered watches. You should be able to purchase on their site by emailing them. I sent them an email to know how much was this watch but haven’t received any response yet. Will update this entry when I do.
	2. Timex, Oceanus, Pulsar and Junghans also make Casio and Citizen style like watches, but I am not looking for this style of watches.
	3. Here you can find more solar watches. You can get a great wholesale price: 20 for only $97!! ;)
	4. At Deal Extreme, I found this very inexpensive watch: $8.37. I cannot believe the price, mostly justified because it is not a metallic watch, but who cares. The design is still not what I am looking for. They also have other models around the same price.
	5. The National Geographic Aviator II Watch, priced at $160.
	6. The Prada, only available in Europe and not out yet will be sold at €1500
	8. I also found a Solar Powered Braille Watch (shown left) which looks really great and was designed by a certain Jeonjun Cho. Also, a Solar Spy Watch Camera but could not find any retailer for neither of them. So if you happen to know how much they cost and where to find them, please share the info!!

That’s it. Unfortunately, no real solar watch to my taste so if you know some, share it. The one I will probably go with for now is the #4 from Deal Extreme. I wish solar watches would be like this, this or this. But it is not reality yet… :(

On this note, I will do a new search on other eco green watches, non solar powered.

Good night!