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SINGAPORE : June 5 is World Environment Day, and with the Saving Gaia campaign, MediaCorp is doing its bid to spread awareness about saving the planet.
But what can you do for the environment when it comes to technology? Plenty, as we found out. Gadget makers are now producing devices that are more sustainable, energy-efficient, recyclable, and which don’t contain toxic compounds. Make a difference now by greening up your digital life with this list of gadgets.
Alternative Power Sources
Here comes the sun: Sanyo portable eneloop solar light (S$255)
We often complain about the heat, so it’s a good thing it can be put to good use when it comes to solar power.
Sanyo’s new portable eneloop solar light has solar cells that were originally developed to be rooftop solar panels. You can charge the light using solar power or by plugging it into a power socket. At full charge, the solar light can power its LED-based panel lights for nine hours at its brightest setting and 35 hours at its dimmest. It also has a beam light that can be used for up to 50 hours.
A USB port on the eneloop solar light lets you power or charge other gadgets.
Power in your pocket: eGear S-220 Solar Battery (S$199)
If you can do without the lights and need one that fits in your pocket, try eGear’s S-220 Solar Battery. Like the eneloop, you can charge the eGear’s rechargeable battery pack with solar power or by plugging it into a USB port.
The eGear takes eight to 10 hours to get a full charge under the sun and three to five hours via USB. You can vary its output voltage and it comes with different adaptors for phones and a USB port.
Easy-breezy: HYmini (US$49.99, or S$73)
Solar chargers are now a dime a dozen; the HYmini (www.hymini.com) by miniWIZ relies on the wind instead. You can strap this wind-powered charger to the handlebars of your bicycle or to your arm when you go for a jog or even stick it out the window of your car as it’s cruising down the expressway. We also like the fact that you can expand its energy-harnessing abilities by connecting it with other accessories, which include a mini hand crank or multiple solar panels.
The energy stored in its internal battery (chargeable via a power socket, too) can be used to recharge your cell phone, MP3 player, digital camera and other 5V devices. According to its makers, 20 minutes of wind power on the HYmini can give you six minutes of talk time on a 3G mobile phone, 60 minutes of iPod playback and 45 shots on a camera.
Waste Not
Plug this in, instead: USBCELL (S$23 for a pair)
Despite how practical rechargeable batteries can be, we hate the clunky chargers they come with. It’s not something you’d like to travel with, either. Enter USBCELL’s batteries (www.usbcell.com): They come in standard AA sizes, with AAA, 9V and customised sizes coming up soon. They look like normal batteries, but with a slight difference - they have a built-in USB jack. At $23, a pair costs more than a conventional set of rechargeable batteries, but with USB ports available on any computer, it sure beats the inconvenience of being able to charge your batteries only with a proprietary charger.
The vampire energy slayer: Sony Bravia Z5500
The new Sony Bravia Z5500 series comes with the latest whiz-bang features a TV should have, but it was its Energy Saving Switch that caught our eye. By activating it, you can stop electricity leakage without having to unplug the TV. This cuts standby power consumption to zero, so you can avoid wasting electricity through “vampire power”. We wish more of our appliances and gadgets had this kill switch because over time, standby power consumption can contribute significantly to energy usage. Despite being energy-friendly, the TV is no slouch in the features department, with smooth high-def footage, thanks to 200MHz Motionflow technology. The Bravia Z5500 is available in 40-, 46- and 52-inch versions.
Monitoring Energy Usage
Electric, my dear Wattson: DIY Kyoto Wattson (S$329)
The Wattson by DIY Kyoto (www.greenkoncepts.com) is a wireless device that lets households monitor how much power they’re using. It’s a sleek portable box with a screen that shows how much your power use is costing in real time. It glows red when the household uses more power than normal and blue when it is energy-efficient. Installation seems painless: Simply attach a sensor to the cables at your mains and it transmits data to the display wirelessly. Holmes, the aptly-named bundled software, charts your power usage in graphs for easy tracking.
HP’s Power to Change widget
Want to know how much of a difference you can make? HP estimates if 100,000 users shut down their idle computers, energy savings could amount to 2,680 kilowatt hours (kWh) and carbon emissions reduced by 1,600 kilogrammes per day, the equivalent of removing 2,000 cars from the road each month.
To discourage energy wastage, HP has created a widget that can track and display the cumulative savings of switching off your computer.
The widget (www.hp.com/powertochange) sends data about your computer’s power consumption to its servers and displays the amount of energy that you’re saving when you power down your computer.
Visit the Energy Efficiency Singapore website (www.e2singapore.gov.sg/energy-saving-tips.html) for more tips on how you can lower energy consumption.
- TODAY/il
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