indoor light
Oh man I can use my lightbulbs to generate electricity? Dude this is going to make a killing!
Fuck the years of the three laws of thermodynamics! Now is the time of the three laws of robotics!
this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2026
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I've been hearing about this for years. The fact that it never materialized is a sign that it probably doesn't make sense economically.
Or because people want windows to let light into their homes?
Solar panels make sense on roofs, not windows
I’ve seen a large installation in person and they light plenty of light in, but aren’t quite clear so you can’t really enjoy the view out as you would with a normal window.
They would make good skylights in an office situation when you want natural light but don’t need to see out of them.
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Boston’s logan airport has them in the newest terminal.
They work, but scatter light in a weird way and heat up the space dramatically. Granted that these are floor to ceiling 2 story windows, might have been hot either way, but can’t have reflective coating with solar.
Boston’s logan airport has them in the newest terminal.
Airports, famous for their efficiency and sensible economic policies.
Yeah it’s literal window dressing.
A solar panel can't heat a space more just by being present, but if it replaces reflective surfaces then sure.
In normal circumstances it reduces heat compared to a similar surface due to converting solar energy which would've become heat into electricity (assuming you don't use all that energy right away, in which case it merely transports where the heat happens away from the panel)
They scattered infrared light in a weird way.
I was actually installing a system with passive IR motion sensors that worked great at night, but as soon a as the sun was shining in, went all haywire. We brought them down the hall to the older tinted window wing, and they behaved normally again. They even worked well outside, which we thought was the worst case scenario during testing.
When we came back with an ir camera, it was full of scattered noise, but the resolution wasn’t good enough to understand exactly what was happening and we had already switched to different hardware that worked around the problem.
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Doesn’t make sense economically/for big corporations.
Why not just put the solar panel next to the window so you don't have to cover it at all? The more light a panel absorbes, the more efficient it is, which is kind of the exact opposite type of thing that you would want to cover a window with if you still want it to be a window. I'm not even going to bother addressing the inefficiencies of harvesting indoor light, other than to say it's idiotic.
I mean, couldn't you take a solar panel and make it like an awning above the window or something? Have a system where it can pull into the window to be flush with the building if you want.
You want to use solar panels to both collect solar energy AND provide shade to residents within the building? Sounds a bit too efficient for my tastes. Let's put ugly brown tints on the windows instead and collect a fraction of the energy at 10x the cost.
That's not a bad idea. Solar shutters could work also.
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This is awesome. I want em.
I can see something like this as part of a system where we harvest energy from every possible surface if eventually becomes easy enough to produce and has a decent durability.
On some windows could make sense as permanent installations and on others they could be used as movable blinds.
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
At least they're smarter than the solar roadways guy?
IDK. The solar roadway guy was a marketing genius. The ability to sell so many people on something so patently absurd is seriously impressive.
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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They found the bare device retained 80% of its efficiency over 300 hours
Thats pretty bad. A regular PV panel would hit that level of degradation after about 20 years.
You don't want to replace your windows every month?
Such a solarpunk vibe for everything inside to be tinged orange from your windows power generation. Absolute shame that this isn't really that useful just cool. No way a house with these would generate significant power
It wouldn't really need to generate "significant" power. At least, not in terms of whole-home power. Something like this could easily generate and store enough power for an auxiliary system, something like overnight lighting. Basically the same principle as those solar lawn lamps, but for inside. Wire 'em all to a battery and a bunch of lights and light/motion sensors throughout the home, and you've got automatic nightlights that work even when the power's out.
I have two sets of solar lights on my balcony that put out enough light to easily navigate by and it's one of the things in my place that was truly "set and forget". Having something passively collecting energy to use for later is nothing to sniff at
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Yeah exactly, not increadibly useful nothing groundbreaking but a very cool toy
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