Value in incorporating solar panels in a mobile phone?

[UltArc]

So a pretty common problem now with phones is the battery.

And people love to customize and make unique phones. Could it be of value to add (OEM) solar panels to a phone? Looking at this image of the front of the phone, a Moto X, we see quite a bit of bezel.



Now it wouldn't be much, but it would add power while on it's back.

A bigger opportunity if we flip it over. I posted that image because it shows the multiple options for backs. I do enjoy my Bamboo back



BUT, what if this could be a solar panel? Since I just bought a solar panel, with a claimed 30,000 MAH storage (they later admitted 10,000-15,000, and it is ACTUALLY closer to 5,000) for about 17 dollars. That is all the parts and pieces, being built in an underdeveloped world, and shipped in bulk through a wholesaler, then shipped out to me, and paying lots of people along the way. They still made money off of me at $17.

So the price isn't a big deal. Incorporating it into a device can't be too difficult. Could this provide much battery? True it won't be much in power, but while in a car with GPS/roaming, in the day there is more light to slow the drain.

When it's sitting out with some light, it can still be gaining some charge. True not much, but would it be worth while? As much as I love adding wood to something technologically advanced (my phone, my car lol), I'd rather add something of actual value.

What are your thoughts? Any rough calculations? We've got quite a bit of brilliance here, if anyone has any calculations at the value of this.

[2000mc]

Amazon.com: Solar phone case

[UltArc]

Thank you for posting examples of what I have, specifically the old technology. Refreshing the topic early on- is there value in incorporating this with the device itself?

[ecomodded]

the back of the iphone should be a solar panel , so its always charging , even with just the office lighting many people sit in.

Patent the idea or see if it is patented.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by ecomodded

the back of the iphone should be a solar panel , so its always charging , even with just the office lighting many people sit in.

Humm... Just for numbers, let's say that office (your cube) has light equal to a 100 watt incandescent bulb. But incandescent bulbs are about 5% efficient, so that's 5 watts of energy in the light. Assume it's spread evenly over your 3x3 meter cube, that's 0.56 watts/m^2. A typical phone is about 120x60 mm, or 0.0072 m^2, or 4.03 milliwatts. With a 10% efficient solar cell, that's 0.4 mW of power generated.

But per Google, the iPhone 5S has a max battey capacity of 5966 mWh. so unless my math's off (which it easily could be), it'd take about 15,000 hours to recharge a phone from office lighting.

[redpoint5]

As James points out, solar panels on phones is useless.

I have a solar battery charger / LiPo combo designed to recharge a phone. The LiPo battery is 2Ah and can deliver 1 full charge to a phone. Positioning the solar panel in the best direction I can, it takes an entire sunny day to charge the battery. The panel has a surface area about 4x that of a typical phone.

Yesterday I left my phone outside in the sun while I dug for a broken water main. 30min later I went to my phone to check the time, and it had shut off due to the temperature being too high.

Leaving phones in the sun is not good for them.

Phones don't need quad core processors. If people didn't expect their phones to be as speedy as their PCs, the battery could last much longer.

[ecomodded]

I am certainly not gong to defend it against all the critics.

I think its a good idea, it can keep a phone ready for use if sits turned off most of the time.

[jakobnev]

but while in a car with GPS/roaming, in the day

Better to just charge from the car..

[P-hack]

not enough surface area AND it encourages folks to leave their rather expensive toys laying about.

[niky]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Leaving phones in the sun is not good for them.

This is pretty much the big issue with solar chargers. That's why a case is better... provides some heat protection...

If I had solar panels on a smart phone, I'd use it to run a liquid cooling system for that big twenty jillion gigahertz giga-octo-core processor it needs to run the latest edition of Flappy Bird.