Let’s start this week energetic with another story on wearable (solar) power after pointing to the latest high-tech research at MIT in the wearable solar power field last Friday and the amazing Diode-solar-cell by Meg Grant.

Diffus, a Danish design company who’s work connects culture, aesthetic and technology has designed a gorgeous looking Solar Handbag.

The eye-catching look of this solar bag design comes from the unique design approach by Diffus: instead of trying to integrate one of the ‘standard’ flexible displays into a bag and design around it, Diffus designs the bags’ by blending the technology into the style, making technology part of the design aesthetic.

The solar panel is broken into 100 single cells called ‘solar sequins‘, to create a large area to capture sun light around the bag.

From technological view, splitting up a conform, large area into smaller units increases the probability that some of the 100 cells will almost always have the optimum sunlight capturing position, increasing the overall efficiency of the solar handbag.

The total output capability for this Solar Handbag is rated by Diffus at 2 Watt, plenty of electrical power sucked out of the sun on-the-go and stored in a battery for use whenever needed. Another nice feature of this bag design – illumination inside the bag at night powered by the suns’ energy at day.

Optical fibers integrated into the inner lining act as search light for all the little stuff that is loosely floating around inside a handbag.

A unique approach I really love, using (wearable) technology as aesthetic design element instead of (trying) to hide it which often compromises aesthetic a lot.

My only hope is that Diffus can attract attention from brands to carry this gorgeous design into a commercialized product. I don’t expect that to be cheap but Fendi, Prada and Co. are famous for style at an elevated price point.

[via: Fashioning Technology]

This is a once in a lifetime chance to get a solar bag designed by top designers like Diane von Furstenberg, Tommy Hilfiger, Loomstate, Loeffler Randall, Lutz & Patmos, Rogan, Vena Cava, and Zero + Maria Cornejo worked with Sheila Kennedy to create sun power hungry bags.

Kennedy who founded the Portable Light Project, a non-profit initiative that provides solar textile kits to empower the world’s poorest people who do not have access to electricity and these top designers came together for ELLE Magazine’s ‘Green Issue’ to demonstrate how good looking solar bags can/could be made and to highlight the usefulness of solar power harvesting ‘on-the-go’ products for people in regions on our planet who have not the luxury to have a wall wart in their house or even village.

The designers where given from Kennedy the FLAP (Flexible Light and Power pack) module consisting of an 13″ x 4.75″ flexible solar panel, rechargeable batteries, an HBLED (High Brightness LED) light and a USB port.

These gorgeous looking solar bags will be auctioned off at eBay starting today, July 5th until bidding ends on July 15th. All profit will go towards the nonprofit, Portable Light Project.

It is amazing how beautifully looking solar bags top designers can make considering they had to use a standard flexible solar panel module.

[via: Treehugger]

No, I have not made a typing mistake in the headline, Neon Green, a new brand joining the solar power bag market, named their soon to be launched range Soular Power Back-Up Packs.

What can be seen so far from the 2010 catalog of Neon Green’s new range is very impressive besides the fact that these bags capture the sunlight on the go and convert it to electrical energy for our pocket devices.

Among the innovative designed range is the Capsoul 3-in-1 Back-up-Pack (see images) which has the option to take off the solar panel part and use it as shoulder bag or a hand carrying case with solar charging function for a stroll around the city or have it attached to the backpack for the adventure trip power supply.

Let’s hope Neon Green is coming out with these great looking, style flexible \solar bags in time for the spring/summer sun season. We will watch out and notify you once the Soular Power Back-Up Packs hit the stores.

[via: ChipChick]

Sunnybag is a new line of exclusive shoulder bags with integrated, flexible solar panels made by Austrian company Ponsold.

The first model available is the ‘Business Pro‘, made of finest dark brown cow-skin leather and includes a 1600mAh Li-Ion battery pack, 2 flexible solar panels with 3 watts of power output, connectors to more than 400 different cell phones, iPhone 2G, 3GS, iPod and USB-port.

The ‘Business Pro’ is a exceptionally good looking business bag with a large, 2 piece solar active area which will still charge the on-bag battery on a cloudy day.

I have expressed my opinion, my love for solar bags, which are one of the best marriages of technology and soft goods, multiple times. Flexible solar panels on bags don’t add much additional weight, they are robust enough to withstand the ‘treatment’ we give our bags but they generate almost unlimited electrical power for our growing number of electronic pocket devices. Power we never can have enough off, power we often badly need for that important call or other tasks we depend so much in our digital lifestyle.

The retail price of the ‘Business Pro’ SunnyBag is $299,- available via Sunnybag’s online shop.

I particularly like the statement of Stefan Ponsold, project leader of R&D in SunnyBag’s press release: ‘Our solar bags are more than a fashion statement, they are a personal statement about a commitment to sustainability, sensibility and responsibility.’

Good news for DIY enthusiasts: more and more companies offer components from their product portfolio for DIY projects making it easy to explore their latest technologies.

Voltaic, well known as pioneer of solar power bags has added a DIY Solar Project Site offering solar panels, battery packs and a huge selection of connectors (it’s shocking to see how many different charging connectors electronic companies using, even within their own product range).

The solar project site offers suggestions on what to do with solar panels. Notable for our topic is the Solar Bike Pannier DIY project demonstrating how to add solar power to a biker bag.

The material costs (everything is available on Voltaic’s DIY store) run up to $165.- excluding a bag to modify. It’s not the cheapest DIY project but solar power bags are quite practical according the feedback we got from the biker community as the solar panels are usually fully exposed to the sun when they are riding across the country and pick up a lot of sun power on the way.

Starting with Voltaic’s components the DIY instruction is fairly simple and straight forward as it basically does not need any soldering or electrical component handling but focuses on the fixation for the solar panels and placement of the power-pack.

With all the sunshine around these days, a solar power bag might be something to consider to complement your digital life style.

I spend a lot of time outside with plenty of sinshine during my travel across Europe while my solar bag is doing a nice job in sucking the sun power to give me the ‘extra mile’ on battery power for my gadgets.

Being around Europe I came across another company located in Switzerland having a small but fine range of solar charging bags for business, adventure and city folks.

The entire range feature a powerful solar charging capability of 4 Watt by 15 Volt with the ability to suck up solar energy even on cloudy days.

Especially the ‘Elégance’ bag (image) radiates it’s solar power sucking capabilities by having almost the entire bag covered with a large solar panel.

Available by Daochu (German only site) for CHF365.- ($334.25) including a storage battery and various adapters to connect to iPod, PDA, PSP, GPS.

For my part, I will grab now my solar bag and head outside to catch the sun-power while doing my next part of sightseeing.

We just got a hot tip from Noon Solar announcing the introduction of The Elston, the latest addition to their gorgeous looking line of solar fashion bags.

The Elston is a messenger bag named after one of the longest and most bike-able streets in Chicago. Like any good messenger bag, the Elston is roomy and chocked full of pockets and style!

The Elston will charge your cell phone and iPod while carrying your books, file folders or superhero outfits.

The Elston is manufactured in NYC and is made with organic, naturally dyed and veggie-tanned and veggie-dyed leather from Austria.  It measures 15″x 13″x 5″, comes with a rechargeable lithium-ion battery to store your harvested solar power and costs $447.

Noon Solar won’t post the Elston on their website until next week, but if you email to info@noonsolar.com by Wednesday, May 6, you will get a 15% discount!

Email your name, phone number, and shipping address and Noon Solar will send you a google checkout invoice that can be paid with any credit card.

Hurry up if you want to make better use of the long., sunny days ahead and like The Elston as Noon Solar’s bags are usually sold out very quickly.

As the days are getting longer and with it the possibility of more sunny hours we looked around the world of solar power bags for the laptop carrying business men and women.

Laptop bags are usually larger and can accommodate more surface area that can be converted into solar power harvesting power surfaces.

We selected four candidates each offering unique features like design or power or price.

From our conversation around solar power bags people ask if Laptop charging is possible with such bags. In principle yes but solar power generation requires large areas for solar cells. Practically speaking, bags are usually too small to accommodate large solar cells.

Voltaic claims their Generator Solar Bag is able to generate enough power to charge a laptop but this might only be possible under very good conditions with full sun exposure of the bag for a few hours.

Nevertheless, people who need to be most of the time out-and-around for field work with little access to mains power, this might be a good alternative to carrying around spare batteries all day. The price of the Generator Briefcase is around $500.00

Even higher priced is the Solar Briefcase from Sunload at € 998.00 (around $1,350.00) but with a less powerful solar panel which is doing a excellent job in providing enough juice for iPhone, Blackberry and other personal devices. The cost of the Solar Briefcase comes not only from the solar power part but from the excellent and high quality workmanship that goes into this ‘Made in Germany’ briefcase.

The best value for money to my opinion comes from Reware. Their Profolio Business Attache can easily take care for the power needs of all your personal electronic devices on the go and is available for just $249.99

The last solar power laptop case on our list, the Solarmio Solar Laptop Briefcase has the lowest price tag of $149.95 and comes with a unique solar cell design but due to the smaller solar panel used it is also the lowest on power generation capability. It still might come in handy during times of sunshine to keep the power hungry little devices in your pockets happy with a bit of refill.

The cost of  Solar bags as well as their power capability range is wide. To spend or not to spend money on solar power bags depends on the real need and of course your environmental consciousness. If you are always on the margin of running out of power on your cell phone because you use too often the music player function or watch video clips on it, a solar charging bag would be almost priceless when keeping you connected.

In any way, solar charging bags are cool and always a conversation starter, whenever and wherever I go with mine.

During the past few days, portable solar charging for cell-phones have made the news rounds as a couple of cell-phones with solar panels on one side have been introduced during last weekends MWC (Mobile Wireless Congress) in Spain.

While the idea to make self charging, power grid independent devices is highly appreciative, the sensibility of the design is questionable.

Coming myself from an technical background I know that raised temperature exposure to electronic devices can lead to malfunction and to deformation of the housing materials when exposed for too long and too high temperatures.

As solar panels need sun light to work 100% those cell-phones need to be placed in direct sunlight. Sure, solar panels will charge in bright room environment or on cloudy days but the efficiency and effectiveness of the solar panels go down to 20%.

Another factor is the battery itself: the best charging condition is by around 25 degree Celsius. Higher temperatures will shorten the batteries lifetime as the chemical reaction inside the battery cell will not work in higher temperature properly.

Inside pockets or bag especially during hot summer days the temperature is already exceeding this 25 degrees but now imagine the device is place in direct sunlight.

From my point of view, bags and other fashion accessories including clothing with integrated solar panels make much more sense as they will not only minimize the cellphones’ (or other portable devices) exposure to direct sun light = heat, but also gives additional protection against scratches and cell-phone snatchers.

Bags and clothing provide the solar panels a place where they feeling best: on the outside and in direct sunlight contact where they can harvest all the unlimited, environmental friendly energy.

Echarger, a small UK based company is offering a nice range of solar charging bags for every occasion ranging from business bags, messenger to back bags and pouches, all equipped with a solar energy converting module.

Although Echarger is using the sort of stiff solar panels which I am not particularly exited about as they to not allow a seamless and unobtrusive integration compared to flexible solar panels I do like the design of their solar charging bag collection.

Many different adapter come with the bags allowing to make the charging connection with most of the portable devices on the market ranging from cell-phones, PDAs, many audio player, game consoles and GPS units. A included power pack stores the suns energy and gives it off when needed.

Great, or should I say small, is the cost of Echarger’s bags, ranging between $50.00 to $78.00 but unfortunately Echarger’s online shop says they are ‘out of stock’ at the moment.

If you look forward to the sun rich season and care a bit for the environment, these solar charging bags might be just what you have been waiting for: good design, lots of connectors and a very favorable price tag.

A word of caution: do not expect solar charging bags (all of them) will make you completely power-grid independent. These bags charge nicely smaller devices while in the sun and collect some energy during other times useful to top off a cell-phone but won’t give enough power to talk all day long.