Solar Powered Mouse Being Tested
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 08. 3.07
The Delft University of Technology has built a solar powered mouse, testing whether renewable energy products, with higher functionality and a touch of design, can encourage users to adopt modern and consistently sustainable conduct. They even have the Minister of Housing and the Environment using one. They are testing the "willingness of the user to adapt his behaviour to favourable light conditions by regularly charging the unit with daylight from the window, and the computer usage pattern. With solar energy, under ideal circumstances charging can occur a factor of five times quicker than in the current situation. Over time it is estimated that several hundred million batteries could be saved annually on a global scale."
Seems to this reader that one's hand covers the mouse most of the day and at night the lights are out. Perhaps for casual computer users. ::University of Delft via ::Core77
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This rocks, 'cept if you keep you hand on it all day, it aint no good!
It would be better if there were a wireless-laser mouse/trackball which drew power from moving it around/shaking it. That way just using it powers it, and one could waste time infront of PC/Mac in ur mom's basement wihtout having to deal with teh realz sunlight etc.
But who's going to keep their hand on it all day? Moreover, I'm assuming that it has a rechargeable battery like most wireless mouses.
this has a lot of synergy with the handheld fusion product i'm working on! :P
I haven't bought a mouse since 1998 when I bought my first laptop with a touchpad. After the initial learning curve the touchpad turns out to be a much faster and easier method of mousing. No need to buy a new mouse every 6 months when someone adds a new feature.
my kids each have a wireless optical mouse that advertized that it would last for one year and now have run on one rechargable AA battery for a year now. (it's from logitech)
if the surface of the mouse had solar to recharge it i am sure it would never run out of power.
Ok, this is a dumb idea.
Put solar panel on the mousepad and use induction to transfert energy from the pad to the mouse.
Put in the mouse a long lasting battery, like a cellphone and there you go.
4 Years and yet they come up with the worst idea ever.
Those guys need to think outside the box, or look outside to see what's been happening in the last 4 years!
Seriously clever, I avoid wireless mice and keyboards because they tend to run out of power at the worst possible moment.
Having said that, modern input devices are a lot more conservative with the amount of power they use. Still a battery is a battery and needs recharging which sucks.
I like this mouse because I am sure the solar panel is enough to keep the mouse batteries charged up even in dim office environments, unless of course it is covered by a hand during all lit hours of the day. But I imagine even weekends would be enough to keep the batteries charged up enough.
It would be good if the mouse uses Ultra capacitors because they don't wear out the way regular rechargeable batteries do.
A solar powered mouse? Not impressive. First, how much power does running a mouse actually take? Not much, relatively speaking. Second, let's consider where these things are used - indoors for 100% of the time for 99.9999% of our population. This one is probably made by a company more excited about making a few bucks off the "eco craze" going on right now than making an actual difference. NEXT!
This is a great idea. Look at it this way:
You're at the office during the weekdays and you're not using your home computer, therefore the mouse is charging during work hours and is ready at night and during the weekends.
You're using your home computer and the mouse you have at the office isn't being used during the weekend, therefore your office mouse is being charged during the weekend when you're not using it.
Also, you are reducing waste from AA/AAA alkaline batteries that most wireless mouses still use today, and are saving power from the production of alkaline batteries.
If you have a rechargeable mouse, then you're also saving power and greenhouse gases from **not** using a charger connected to the grid.
There are even benefits from using a standard corded mouse: your computer uses less power because you don't need to hook up an extra mouse to it, which uses less grid power and therefore saves on greenhouse gases.
Although I would have to agree with other posts, saying that it would be smart to have the mouse be powered by movements such as sliding ingots and power spheres. If you combined the solar with motion-sensitive power, you would have the first guaranteed all-renewable mouse in the country, and it would make millions and save loads on GHG emissions.
Now, how can we get a self-powered keyboard?
RE: Trackpads are faster than mice....actually they are not. Average mouse usage is 21% faster than similar task done with a trackpad.... true.
i dont like it