Heliotropic tracker

Nice, but it won't work for this application. The OP is trying to track the sun as seen through an aperture (window). A solar tracker, as in the video, would need to move itself around the room so as to stay in line with the aperture and the sun. Something like this robot:

This looks like just the job for the motor:

I knew that, I just ran across the video and thought it was neat. I find trying to recharge a phone with a solar array and tracking system, well, economically unfeasible. But I understand the journey and all. Have had my own. Mikek

It is a neat hack, but hardly elegant. There was a long thread in s.e.d. a while back mostly on designing a solar tracker. The problems I have with the design is it doesn't use any electronics and that while clever, the algorithm for starting the tracker on sunrise is not necessary.

It's a fair assumption that any size solar array worth tracking will also have an available source of stored power, such as a battery pile. Therefore, the use of a self-powered or non-electronic tracker make little sense. Add a microprocessor to the system and many things are possible. One of those is to aim the device using the known and repeatable sun position algorithm. This is probably overkill: That eliminates the tendency of trackers to go nuts when the sun goes behind a cloud, when automobile or street lights hit the array, etc.

However, such an algorithm isn't really necessary. It's a fair assumption that the sun will rise almost at the same location along the horizon on successive days. All that's needed is to store where the sun rose the day before, and pre-aim it at the same position. When the sun appears, the device is ready to start tracking.

Yep. I went that route many years ago with the solar powered watch, solar powered calculator, and solar powered analog bag phone. The watch lives under my shirt sleeve and rarely sees the sun. The solar calculator lacked a controller and would rapidly kill the LR44 battery resulting in very limited runtime. My bag phone included a rather large lead acid battery, which required a correspondingly large solar array to charge within a reasonable amount of time.

Despite the obvious indoor problems, marginal ideas never seem to die completely: Eventually, the power drain of such devices will be low enough that they can be charged with energy harvesting techniques, which work indoors. However, for recharging cell phones, which seem to favor ever increasing battery capacity, I don't think so.

Yeah, that would probably work. However, I prefer to use an ordinary model train, which moves faster. Instead of slowing down the train with gearing, I would program it to power off, wake up, and then lurch across the predicted path ever few minutes. No need for continuous tracking. The sun moves across the sky at 15 degrees/hr (or 0.25 deg/min). So, if I program it to lurch forward every 7.5 degrees of movement, I would only need to power the train motor every 30 minutes. How far the train moves on the train tracks depends on the distance between the window and the train tracks, but that can be programmed into the calculations.

What trend is there to lower power in mice and keyboards? I haven't seen any improvement in over a decade. It's still two AA or AAA cells each month or two. I use rechargeable cells now. I got tired of tossing out batteries.

Have you noticed the advertisements for up to 12 and 18 month battery life for mice? There are a few (TekNet and Logitech M510) that claim 24 month battery life, and one (Logitch M705) that claims 36 month life. I expect to see 4 and 5 year battery life claims or possibly non-replaceable lithium thionyl chloride batteries that should last much longer.

I had one customer demand a USB wired keyboard and mouse because of her bad experiences with batteries dying at inconvenient times. What was really happening was that her Logitech something mouse and keyboard would act rather erratic on low battery voltage. Range was reduced to the point where moving in and out of range would cause frustrating lapses in control. This was perceived as having something to do with the battery life. The mouse and keyboard still work, but not at the same range as when the battery was new.

I have. I've been using a Lenovo BlueGoof wireless laser mouse in my palatial office for about a year, with no sign of a dead battery. Two AA cells is probably what makes the difference. I've also noticed extended battery life with Logitech Unifying 2.4GHz mice and keyboards, most of which use AA batteries. 6 months or more is typical. However, you're right about AAA batteries, which tend to be very short lived. At this point, damage from premature battery leakage is more of a problem than insufficient battery life.

You can always add a Batteriser for an increase of 800% in battery life :-) :-)

BTLE (2006) is good enough already?

That might be a nice application for an inductive charging system. Plenty of room, and you need to store the keyboard somewhere, may as well be on top of the drive coil.

Mikek

Which keyboard and mouse? I use the Logitech wireless board and mouse. I just recently replaced the mouse batteries after about a year or more of use. The keyboard batteries I've not replaced in well over two years.

Use the power supply for the tracking 'vehicle' to charge the phone...

What does any of that have to do with lower power? I expect much of that is specmanship and shutting the unit off more often which becomes a problem for the user. I had one mouse that would go into low power state after a few minutes. I would have to push a button to reactivate it and that button push would be transmitted. Not a good design.

Maybe you just aren't using them much. My mouse is a Logitech, not even a year old I think and it runs down in no longer than two months. If they could make the batteries run for over a year, why would they make any models that don't?

Logitech MX. Bought it about a year ago at Costco.

I don't know of any chargers that run off of cat food or lettuce.

Potato battery?

But seriously. Put the phone on a stick and poke it right up against the window.

That could work. They have selfie sticks. Why not "Phone on a Stick"?

I'll assume Logitech MX Master, which uses rechargeable batteries. Battery life: up to 40 days on a single full charge Battery life may vary based on user and computing conditions. Battery: rechargeable Li-Po (500 mAh) battery This is about using throw away batteries, not rechareable.

Sorry. I thought we were discussing battery life, which is a combination of duty cycle, standby and wake up algorithms, and power consumption. There was quite a bit of improvement in all these areas with BTLE, some of which has been adopted by proprietary schemes, such as the Logitech Unify protocol.

Sure. If lower overall power consumption can be achieved by playing with the battery saver algorithms, then there's less of a need to reduce the operating power consumption. However, battery life seems to have become a major consideration for most users, which makes me suspect that the manufacturers will do their best with both the power save algorithms and the operating power consumption.

Yeah, I have had those too. Todays models are a little better, but still haven't got the wake up time down to instantaneous. The problem is that to get instantaneous wakeup, the communications link between the mouse and the receiver needs to be running continuously. That's a bit power drain. BTLE does it with a keep alive system, but only for a while. Eventually the transmitter in the mouse shuts off completely which then requires a full handshake ceremony to wake up again. By having various levels of standby, the system tries to predict how a typical user would use the mouse, and tailors the standby power levels to the user. I once proposed a mouse that had a built in proximity sensor that would detect an approaching hand. That gave the mouse about a 500 msec head start on wakeup, which was sufficient to negotiate a wakeup before the mouse was moved. The mouse also had a position sensor that would put the mouse into standby if it was sitting in any position other than normal operating position (flat on table). That was useful for those like me that just dump their mouse into a carrying bag without turning it off.

So what does any of this have to do with lower power? Nothing. It has to do with lower power consumption, fewer joules, longer battery life, and continuous development and innovation.

Actually, I keep an automatic log of when my various machines are being used, what programs are open, and keystrokes per minute. I don't log mouse movement, but I think it's fair to assume that a large percentage of the time when the keyboard is active, so is the mouse. In the previous week, the keyboard was active for about 4 hrs/day over an elapsed time of about 6 hrs/day. I do more typing that mouseing, so I would guess an average of 3 hrs/day for 5 days per week. Offhand, I would think that's quite a bit of use and well above typical for most users.

Could you be a bit more specific as to the model number? I've had quite a bit of experience with Logitech devices over the years. Some are really good, while other really suck. However, even the word mice have a longer battery life than 2 months.

Well, a tolerable conspiracy theory would be that users buy new wireless mice and keyboards when the batteries die. Replacing the battery is such an imposition that users would rather inflict themselves with a financial burden than submit to the indignity of a battery replacement ceremony. If mice ran forever, then users would never buy a new mouse. At least that's a theory that marketing might try to promote.

Drivel: One mouse, two mice. One house, two hice?