Solar Clock Review
Solar Clock Review
Product review for the Suck UK Design solar clock
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Solar Clock
The solar clock is exactly what it sounds like - a clock powered by a PV solar panel. The solar panel itself is quite large at 90 x 60mm, but needs to be since the clock is used inside (away from direct sunlight), and must charge up the internal back up rechargeable AA NiMH cell (700 mAh) during the day sufficiently to provide power all night.
The solar clock is free standing, but can also be wall mounted (no fittings supplied). The clock is supplied with two sets of hands, one short set (pictured above) and one long set (pictured at the start of this article) with the long set designed to be used when the clock is wall mounted, and the short set when it is free standing. The clock can be orientated horizontally or vertically according to your own personal taste.
The instructions for the Solar Clock can be downloaded by clicking here: Solar Clock Instructions (PDF). These are very basic since they only need to explain how to change the hands of the clock, and how to reset the hands when the orientation of the clock is to be changed.
Overall Conclusions
The clock keeps good time which is of course the most important thing. It's movement is very smooth and completely silent (i.e. no tick tock). The solar panel is easily big enough to generate sufficient electricity to keep the clock going even when located in a room which is poorly lit.Obviously every product which is solar powered does not necessarily have fantastic green credentials. The carbon footprint of this (Chinese manufactured) clock must be relatively large, but at least it is well made, great looking, and therefore unlikely to find itself going to landfill any time soon. The NiMH rechargeable cell can be replaced in the future - and will probably need to be within 5-10 years when it can no longer hold sufficient charge to power the clock through the night. (Maybe a future version of the Solar Clock will be designed to use an ultracapacitor instead of the NiMH rechargeable AA cell thereby giving decades of self-powering.)
Pricewise it is pretty expensive at around £25-£30 here in the UK, but at least at that price people will be more likely to make the effort to replace the rechargeable cell in the future.
Buy the Solar Clock
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Article Last Modified: 14:38, 16th Sep 2011Comment on this Article
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