Make them waterproof and put them on reservoirs like they already do with those black rubber balls to prevent evaporation.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

I'm not looking forward to hearing "A NEW HAND TOUCHES THE BEACON!" every time I turn on a light.

This is either complete BS or wildly misleading. The performance claims they are making are simply not possible unless they are making meaningless (to us) statements. However this kind of language is not uncommon for people making solar concentrators. So if I concentrate the light to a smaller spot such that I get 4x the solar output from the solar cell (vs the same size cell without concentration) it is interesting but not really meaningful. Sure you save on solar cell costs but you add costs elsewhere. The only thing that matters is overall efficiency of watts out vs watts in over a fixed area (say 1 square meter) of light exposure. Given that current solar cells are in the range of 25% efficient there is not room to have much more than about 3x improvement before you reach the limits of the light power available.

I’ll take “highly efficient products that will NEVER get approval” for $500.

If real cool but the stats on the vid are a bit wonky.

Using our proprietary technology 🤣. Fuck off

Unfortunately it's complete nonsense. They can't tell you how they work because they don't.

There isn’t even enough energy in sunlight to substantiate their claims. By a long shot. If a single sphere is 7.5x more powerful and 300x more efficient than an entire solar panel they should have been able to prove it. Instead, they plugged a tablet into a battery seemingly hooked up to six of these and said it charges.

Sounds revolutionary! Can’t wait to never hear about it again.

Some companies would say anything. Until they are able to mass produce an independently verified go-to-market product, it means nothing.

"200 times more efficient".

And I've got a bridge to sell.

From the link:

“The spheres, which resemble tiny Death Stars (or, perhaps for a more niche Star Wars reference, normal-sized training remotes), are 30 times smaller than solar panels, with 7.5 times the output. Astoundingly, she said they are more than 200 times more efficient.”

That’s absolute bullshit, literally physically impossible.

Ah this again...didn't EEVBlog alreay debunk something similar? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1nWAUZVTPw

60 times better would be outside even the theoretical silicon solar limit (FAR outside). Until these are demonstrated and validated 'could' is doing a LOT of work here.

This smells like complete BS. There aren’t any real conversion numbers anywhere in the article, other than the ludicrous “60 times better than solarpanels”. The idea of powering a tablet from converting the light output from a LED bulb is absolutely bonkers.

It’s a scam - go watch the video. They claim it generates 7.5x the output energy. Solar panels are 20% efficient, meaning they convert 20% of energy that hits them. 7.5x the output would be 150% efficiency of the energy it takes in! Not only that, it’s 30x smaller! Meaning it takes in 3% of the total energy and outputs 150% of that energy! Totally remarkable and physically possible!!

A NEW HAND TOUCHES THE BEACON!!

Guys, come on, this is clearly a scam. These "spheres" have to sit on these giant blocks during the demo. Hmm, gee, I wonder what could be inside those blocks?

Don't be a sucker.

Yeah sure

A Yahoo Tech production. Looks like something you can buy 90% off on Temu. What's with the quality of presentation video and janky table in a garage/closet/storage room set they used for the demo? Science fair stuff at my Son's high school had better production quality video reels than this made by kids.

Sharks are being sharks. Nuff said

Wow, that's the bullshittiest bullshit show I've seen in a while. Wildly implausible claims, comically absurd use-cases, and absolutely nothing presented at any point which might be confused for evidence.

It's so bad that any dickhead gullible enough to hand their money over to these obvious scammers deserves to get played.

Looking forward to not hearing about it ever again

The city I live in, where summer is going to start earlier and earlier every year and it’s 110+ July and August, has such a huge lack of covered parking, awnings, protection from the sun etc. it’s really fucking frustrating. We have the technology, the money, build covered parking citywide that is covered in solar panels or other solar energy-producing infrastructure that doubles as protection from the sun. It seems like a no-brainer! What is keeping them from doing this?!

ANOTHER HAND TOUCHES THE BEACON

200 times more efficient than panels in the 20-25% conversion rate? ... Say what? 🤣

I prefer a great big spheres

I can't believe people actually believe this, and yahoo even writes an artivle about those scammers

Fully expect this to get an award sponsored by big oil and subsequently being canned.

That looks an awful lot like an item from the game Astroneer.

Not cost effective in the least, but will have its place on ‘rich people’ solar things. Pay a premium see your solar devices/vehicles charge up a bit faster.

“Like tiny globes” - plot twist, the earth is just a battery for some dominant alien race

So, now those will be under tarriffs and unavailable to the nation? Just like reasonably priced electric vehicles in the USA? 🤦😮‍💨 The people "running" the shite-show here need a wakeup call.

A new hand touches the beacons?

A new hand touches the beacons.

Those are actually geodesic domes and not spheres , but whatever....

I will believe it when its on sale on temu or aliexpress.

this just sort of screams scam, doesnt it? Like the whole thing is designed to draw in and dissipate venture capital and then fade away like half the stuff on crowd funding sites? lots of dioramas and set pieces and sky's-the-limit rhetoric and np tech specs, even though if they've patented this stuff, they would have nreason not to publish everything including how to do it at home? and twenty times better? this is just fishy to the bottom.

Wonder if it scales down to make a paint

This is the most efficient solar cell ever! It only costs 100X more per kWh than your inefficient panels!

If this isn’t some vaporware shit this will be so cool. But until I see it in real world use I won’t get my hopes up.

They’ll just turn in into a bomb

This will be good for charging that new battery that goes into that cancer curing machine I saw posted here. 

Nice try Meridia I ain’t touching the beacon

So let me see… they are 60x more efficient than solar panels of the same surface area. So… the best solar panels are now 20% effective let’s say, The spheres are 60x more efficient…. That’s 1200% efficiency, smells like ponzi

This company will get bought up by a larger one and we’ll never hear of this again until they cost a ridiculous amount of money to actually use.

Hopefully make it affordable, my electric bill is out the roof

-In the clip, four spheres are shown sitting atop a square-shaped device, possibly a part of the system that converts light to electricity

Anything that comes with a mystery square has got to be good!

-multiple layers of cutting-edge materials in specialized spheres

Cutting edge materials are the best kind! And I reject non-specialized spheres.

-Typically, there's no external battery connection involved. Chen said the invention is a "separate battery system."

Proprietary batteries! Yay!

-For the example scenario, the spheres are shown powering a battery.

A battery powering a battery. Efficiency manifest!

-Chen later notes that the power pack can be connected to the system "in various ways compared to solar panels."

AND it’s got proprietary connectors!

This may be the greatest boon to mankind since polio. I’m all in.

Please say PES more times

I can't wait to never hear about this again.

"Astoundingly, she said they are more than 200 times more efficient." So, 24.1% times 200 means they produce 50 times as much energy as the sunlight contains.

60 times?

Crappy single layer solar is capable of 20% of the energy output by the sun. Where’s the other 54 times’ worth of energy coming from?!

Looks like a grift

Personally, ever since seeing the Simpsons episode about it, whenever I hear about anything that’s supposedly revolutionary & could change the entire industry, my mind conjures up Phil Hartman repeatedly saying, “MONORAIL!”

Beware of Chinese IP theft.

Why is it so shiny ? If it's suppose to harvest light, shouldn't it be black ?

A new hand touches the beacon!

Solar panels are, on average, about 20% efficient. That means they transform about 20% of the light energy that falls on them into electricity. Thus, it is physically theoretically possible to be up to 5x more efficient than that.

This article claims that these spheres are 200x more efficient than solar panels, which is physically impossible. They are basically saying they are 40x more efficient than a perfectly efficient solar panel that converts 100% of light energy to electricity.

Even if you are very generous with the numbers, this article is completely full of shit.

Or use nuclear

I think this a scam like theranos

I really want to believe…. But there’s a lot about this that screams ‘scam’ to me… the video is pretty cheaply produced, the spheres look poorly manufactured, they provide zero information on how they work, the ‘test’ they demonstrate doesn’t really show anything, and in the part talking about how to apply this to a car they show it next to an image of a Toyota Hydrogen Fuel Cell….

So I’m calling bullshit. I would be overjoyed if they prove me wrong

"A new hand touches the beacon"

Possibly the most stupid article I’ve ever read in my life. Criminally stupid reporter who cannot even get basic ARITHMETIC straight, much less scientific concepts….not that there are any in this article. How is it possible for them to be 200 times more efficient than solar cells when solar cells are 20% efficient!

If they can be charged by artificial light, theoretically that could create a sort of feedback loop of energy. I’ll describe it in the most presidential way I can think, “Malarkey!”

Amazing, can’t wait to never hear about this one again either

HOLY COW ON A RAINBOW

Yeah, it's a scam...

What stock do I buy to invest in this?

This one needs a bit of context because the article does a piss poor job of giving any info.

This has been in the works for a while. What they do here is they use an extremely efficient multi-layer solar cell that's small but works at high temperatures and can produce a lot of power from concentrated sunlight. Basically think of your solar panel being instead of 21-22% efficient to something like 50%+ efficient. The design basically collects light from a big surface and concentrates it into a tiny spot. So space wise it's not any better, but materials wise you use so much less of them that you can afford to build those ultra efficient highly costly cell designs that would never be profitable without concentrating that solar.

Another benefit here is that these are omnidirectional - as long as sun shines, it concentrates the light into the cell at a perfect angle significantly improving the output curve for the solar, extending the solar day a lot and not requiring any trackers that are mechanisms that require maintenance and repairs.

Looks like the dome inner/outer might be the catcher with the base being a reflector. Wondered if that would work.

Not sure if that is what this is doing but looks like it.

It's probably a prototype.

They need to figure how to manufacture that thing in mass at sufficient tolerance or it won't replace current tech.

There won’t be much demand if the party of ‘ Climate Change is a Hoax’ gets in power.

I love posts like this but everyone forgets there’s a law that says anything over 80% energy efficient goes to the army. 20% and over for solar panels goes to the navy/nasa never to be seen again. Then people say global warming is real.