More Green Stuff from CES 2010

Following up my earlier post about Shades of Green from CES, here is a look at some more thing I noticed.  Thanks to Engadget and TreeHugger for their coverage.

• Smart Grid Home Controller
  This nifty device bridges Zigbee power meter and Z-Wave home automation.  This is totally for the geek, but I do love to see more devices like this that provide the ability to monitor and log energy use and then do something automatically about it to manage it.
• New dimmer technology works with old CFLs
  I wonder how well this work.  This is someting I’ve got to see to believe.  Note it only works with lamps and who wants the dimmer switch to be at the plug.  I wonder if there is a flicker since it is hard to tell from the video and limited information from the freelux website.
• More solar chargers for gadgets
  

  The options keep growing for solar powering your mobile devices like iPods, cell phones, eBook readers and DVD players.  I think the FreeLoader Pro could possibly satisfy my power hungry iPhone.

• And even more solar charges
  
  (Image from TreeHugger)

  I like this one because it also doubles as a flash light.  This year should bring some interesting options for solar chargers.  Keep in mind many of these need something like 24 hours of direct sunlight (aka 3+ days) to fully charge up, so they may not be able to provide the daily charging needed for an iPhone or Droid.

• Martin LaMonica hosts panel discussion about Greening Electronics
  Our fellow Energy Smackdown competitor Martin LaMonica led the conversation that included things like energy efficient TVs, eRecycling, sustainable manufacturing and embodied energy. While I’m not in the market for a new TV at the moment, I do hope that by the time I am, more information will be available for energy usage comparisons.
• A device that “eliminates” vampire power
  I’m not sure I believe this will actually work.  How does it know if something is a vampire load?  What does it do for DVRs?  How about Cable/Satellite Boxes that maintain scheduling information?  Unfortunately, there is not much any details available yet, though it does have the right idea in terms of trying to be very simple to use and not requiring extensive setup. 
• Pull cord YoGen Charger
  Right idea, but not clear to me that it is worth it and how much power can you realistically generate.  I know the OLPC folks went away from the original human power dreams when they realized that the kids would need a lot more calories in their diet each day to power their XO laptops.  Then again, in the US, perhaps we need to burn a few more calories.  I notice they have a fly wheel in there, which totally makes sense to provide steady power from multiple pulls.
• Solar iPhone Skin isn’t so useful
  I’m starting to come to the realization that it will take a lot of solar power to charge my power hungry iPhone.  The tiny surface area on this device is no where near big enough to charge the phone and who is going to leave their phone sitting in the sun during the day, that’s when I use it most.

I am glad to see so many different and exciting green technologies coming out at the Consumer Electronics Show this year.  I am also happy with the attention being paid to making the electronics more sustainable, though there is plenty of greenwashing out there so be careful buying any “green” gadget.

Happy Greening!
Jon