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[–] 8 points 1 day ago (22 children)

Can we please stop pouring money into stupid ideas? Solar windows make as much sense as a water-soluble condom. It's the kind of hair-brained shit I'd expect to see Elon touting. An invention that is the antithesis of its purpose, dreamed up and funded by some methed out moron surrounded by yes-men and brown-nosers who is so out of touch with the world that he doesn't understand the innate purpose of the object, nor the application of the technology

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  • [–] 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    I think it all boils down to "hey boss, I patented this new technology!", "great, let's shove it down people's throats, pour a bunch of money into getting this hyped in popsci magazines and online tech spaces, we're gonna make hundreds of millions of dollars before anyone realizes what a dumb fucking idea this is."

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    This is the nature of popsci journalism for sure. Combined with the startup funding (/grift, often) hype cycle... Ugly

    One time I had a PR person from my school suit down in my office with me. He really wanted to hype oeut research. I was a wet blanket - probably overly so as I'm actually people-pleaser plus under-promise over-deliver which was incompatible.

    I ended up kinda struggling and seeing how disappointment, almost annoyance, all I could say was 'go talk to [my professor], he's much better at this'

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago (16 children)

    I think you lack imagination. It all comes down to cost and convenience. Mounting something on the exterior is going to be a specialized process whereas getting new windows is relatively standardized. Then add to integration with the electrical system. Theoretically this could be like balcony solar. An electric plug under a window is not uncommon. So if the cost for a solar window is not that much more than a standard window to some degree. It would make sense. Its not a crazy thing to look into at all. Now granted might as well make the exterior frame collect solar as well if possible but again that might just end up being to expensive relative to surface area. Would be worth looking into though just like the window.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 day ago* (15 children)

    IT'S FACING THE WRONG WAY AND IT EITHER BLOCKS A LOT OF LIGHT WHICH MAKES IT A SHITTY WINDOW, OR IT DOESN'T, WHICH MAKES IT A SHITTY SOLAR PANEL. THE FUNCTION OF ONE APPLICATION IS IN DIRECT CONFLICT WITH THE OTHER.

    Caps because I can't think of another way to make it more obvious than it was in my previous comment.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago (3 children)
  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago (2 children)

    Already addressed.

    I wonder why solar window shutters aren’t a thing.

    Because the source of light is mostly up in the sky, and solar panels work best when they are mostly perpendicular to the direction the light is shining.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago (1 child)

    IMO solution is a 'european tilt and turn' window system with an inner window (tint or shade optional) and a solar panel shutter.

    With drive motors and suntrackers for the luxury version.

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  • [–] 1 point 23 hours ago

    Sounds like what you are suggesting is a standalone solar panel mounted on a sun tracking mount above a window? Still, it would be better and cheaper to just lay a solar panel out in the yard and then install a conventional window shutter.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (9 children)

    Brosef, have you never been behind a tinted window? It's not unusual to want to block all the light, plus, you're not even seeing all the light.

    E: intended to say "It's not unusual to want to block some of the light"

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (8 children)

    G-dawg, have you considered that...

    IT’S FACING THE WRONG WAY

    Also, objectively you would end up spending more money for fancy solar windows to intentionally let those precious photons seep through.

    The only place I could see something like this "working" would be in a predominantly glass-roofed building where the amount of light coming through the roof needs to be intentionally limited, and the location does not have space for a freestanding or conventional solar setup. That's such an edge case usage that I can't imagine why I've been hearing this same dumb idea for the last 20 years.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago* (7 children)

    I'm not saying you're wrong on the overall practicality.

    Just that you're loudness is unwarranted, based on it's contents.

    I don't think you really know much about what you're saying.

    Also, feel like maybe I'm being a dick.

    But, you did all caps so all is fair

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  • [–] 0 points 1 day ago (6 children)

    Just that you’re loudness is unwarranted, based on it’s contents.

    Been hearing the same shit about solar windows for the last 20 years. They fundementally don't work. I literally cannot say it LOUD ENOUGH on ANY AND EVERY PLATFORM that people need to logically evaluate the technologies they are proposing.

    If you think about solar windows for more than 10 second and come back with "that's a cool idea, it will totally work!" then you either have a room temp IQ, or you are too young (or old) to be allowed outside unsupervised.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 day ago (5 children)

    Bro you need to get out and meet some more photons

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  • [–] 1 point 23 hours ago (4 children)

    Bro, you need to learn how to substantiate an argument instead of puking up lazy versions of "touch grass".

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  • [–] 1 point 11 hours ago (3 children)

    What I meant is there are plenty of photons that don't make it through windows, both by intentional design and just natural material properties. So, there is potential to make use of that.

    I just noticed a few comments up I accidentally said 'block all of the light' and what I really meant to say was 'some of the light'. Kinda messed up my whole point there.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (2 children)

    there are plenty of photons that don’t make it through windows, both by intentional design and just natural material properties. So, there is potential to make use of that.

    Sure, but a solar panel of the same size on the wall next to the window capturing 100% of the light is already (100-VLTrating) more effective than the solar window. Bring mounted vertically on a wall makes it like 25% as effective as the same panel placed on the ground, which makes it like 50% as effective as a properly mounted panel on a roof.

    So assuming you've what would be a 100W potential equivalent panel on a 50%VLT window, you're getting 6.25W out of that 100W, and that's assuming that these 50VLT windows panels operate just as efficiently as a conventional panel, which I'm gonna guess they don't, but I don't have rough numbers for that particular comparison.

    Unless the window panel somehow outperforms the efficiency of a conventional panel (doubtful), it's going to just be a huge waste of money, and if it does outperform the conventional panel, we'd just mount a 0VLT "window" like a conventional panel and still get over 4x the production. It's a patently ridiculous idea that takes literal seconds to determine it's a waste of time and money, and mere minutes to do the math to show it.

    Before you tear apart my numbers, yes, I did ballpark the efficiency of those angles. I'd did a lot of math calculating a roof mounted vs free standing fixed vs free standing single axis movable vs free standing dual axis movable mounts for a solar pergola that I want to build but lack the funds to setup, so I know roughly how much power you get out of panels at different angles. The numbers are ballparked, but feel free to use whatever actual efficiency numbers you can find, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find real-world values that put the window above 10% of the total output of a traditional panel.

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