Indoor Solar Power
==================

Breaking free from batteries and plugs, a future of rechargeable gadgets comes into focus.

![](https://assets.brentturner.is/_fitWide1600/9525/Firefly-headphones-and-old-solar-powered-calculator-laying-on-a-window-sill-in-a-loft-31639.webp)

Remember those solar-powered calculators from your youth? The ones you could take out of your backpack, and it always “just worked?”

[This article](https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/what-if-you-never-had-to-charge-your-gadgets-again-955ea96?ref=thenewnew.is0) brought back those memories and got me wondering: why don’t I see those anymore? Why didn’t solar-powered gadgets catch on?  

[Chris Mims](https://www.wsj.com/news/author/christopher-mims), an incredible tech columnist at the Wall Street Journal (and, many years ago, my former colleague at MIT Technology Review!), [has the answers](https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/what-if-you-never-had-to-charge-your-gadgets-again-955ea960?ref=thenewnew.is).

Turns out, those calculators were just the tip of a solar-powered iceberg that never quite broke the surface. Back then, indoor light was like a technological desert for solar cells, barely squeezing out enough juice to power a basic calculator, let alone our smartphone-hungry lives.

Well, the game has changed. [A new generation of solar cells](https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/what-if-you-never-had-to-charge-your-gadgets-again-955ea960?ref=thenewnew.is), known as a “dye-sensitized solar cell,” are lightweight, bendable, cheap to manufacture, and ready to revolutionize how we power our gadgets.

By mimicking photosynthesis in plants, these flexible sheets let headphones charge under a windowsill, keyboards ditch the cable forever, electronic door locks never need a battery change, and even remote controls come back to life after a quick sunbath.

Hopefully, soon, we will be taking our phones out of our pockets and not even looking at how much charge it has left.

[

This post was included in _The New New_.

Expore Issue 29 on **thenewnew.is**

](https://thenewnew.is/p/indoor-solar-power-four-ai-wars-diy?ref=brentturner.is)