Jonathan Scott, the handy half of The Property Brothers, is not just a friendly face on untold HGTV shows about renovating, building, and improving homes; he’s a hands-on sort of guy with an eye for technology and, especially, the intersection of smart home tech and sustainability.

I’ve known the Scott brothers for well over a decade, and I've always been impressed with Jonathan’s worldview. A licensed contractor, he sees a home as more than just a dwelling; it’s an ecosystem, and in his renovations and builds he likes to think from the ground up, and about where and when the best opportunity to include sustainable smarts present themselves.

A few years back we talked about his interest in promoting access to solar technology for homes, and given the ongoing changes in both technology and our climate, I thought it was high time to check back in.

Despite his busy schedule, which includes managing a media empire of TV shows, video content, a magazine, books, making guest appearances and enjoying family life, Scott agreed to speak with me about the importance of planning when it comes to finding the right mix of smart-home gear and eco-friendly (and sometimes disaster-avoiding) technology.

After catching up a bit, we dove into the core subject and talked about intelligent home solutions, big and small, and how they impact cost, energy, sustainability, and more. Our conversation has been edited for space and clarity.

TechRadar: You've helped in building and renovating hundreds of homes over the years, and I'm assuming – and you can tell me if I'm wrong – that some smart home technology is factored in. And I'm kind of curious about that, and how maybe it changes a project as you're going into it.

Jonathan Scott: It all depends. A lot of people, when they think about smart technology, they're thinking, 'Surround sound or cameras so I can creep on my friends and family and make sure they're not sneaking midnight snacks in the middle of the night' or whatever it might be. That's not what I think of when I think of true smart-home technology. I'm thinking of what is going to make your life easier, what is going to make the home safer, what is going to save you money. Those are the things that are all important.

One of the greatest pieces of technology right now is a water-saving piece of technology and catastrophic flood-averting technology. It is an AI-driven leak-detection technology with shut-off. Insurance companies are now starting to require them because they've realized they all but eliminate the possibility of having a catastrophic flood.

In my circumstance, it's not even just about the flooding. It's my kids leaving the taps on and then we get a big water bill because, in the guest house, the tap was running for a week and we didn't know. The technology will tell me within minutes that somebody's left the tap on, even if it's a dribble, it can find leaks in the wall.

That's one of the technologies that I think is incredible… because it's actually going to save you headaches and money at the end of the day.

TechRadar: And you have it on an app, right? You would get the notifications on an app, I'm assuming.

Jonathan Scott: I use Phyn and there's a bunch of different technologies out there. What I have discovered in my research is that Phyn is an ultrasonic technology, and it is hands down the best technology and price point on the market. There are other ones as well that don't use ultrasonic.

They have a little cog wheel inside. That's how they measure the flow and everything. The problem is if you have any hard water or mineralization over time, it gunks that up, and it stops working.

You want to always go with something that's going to last so that you don't have to worry about it. And when there is an emergency, it handles the job. That's why I like that. But it's one of those things where most people don't think about something like that until it's too late. And that's a problem. So, that is a type of smart home technology on the water side that I think is amazing. And you have to have the auto shut-off. There are some devices that just monitor flow, but then in an emergency, that's not going to help you, especially if you're not at home.

I've actually averted several floods, not only in our house but in our parents' house, where something happened and immediately [the technology] caught it, no water damage at all.

Same on the power side. There are tons of technologies where you can read the smart panels, for example, where it communicates with all your appliances and it says 'This appliance is using excess energy,' which usually means that the motor's about to go out on a fridge or something like that.

Jonathan Scott: You can also, if you went away on vacation and you're like, "Oh my gosh, did I leave the curling iron on?", you can shut off any individual circuit within the house using these power apps as well. You got to be kind of technically inclined, probably, to dig into that.

The real reason I love putting in a smart panel, like a SPAN panel, I think you and I have talked about SPAN before as well. They do smart panels, EV charging, all kinds of stuff. It's actually the future-proofing of the home that I'm excited about, because in the future, if there was a situation where you're out of power, your power's gone out in your neighborhood, you don't have solar storage backup, you could go and charge your EV, come back, plug it into your house and power your house off your EV.

In the future, there will be that two-way flow of technology, but then also the data from everything is really valuable. I think these technologies allow you to really get a big picture of the cost of your home, the power consumption, and where you can improve.

TechRadar: It really does sound like these things are married: smart home technology and sustainability. I guess what I'm curious about is how much planning in advance do you have to do to integrate these things?

When we're dealing with some smart home technology that we review here, it's so piecemeal, and some things don't talk to each other. So, these systems that you're talking about, are they requiring sort of one decision about a platform, or are they kind of platform-agnostic, and you can just pop them in?

Jonathan Scott: No matter what, the easiest time to incorporate any of this is when you're renovating or building or replacing an appliance that has broken down; that's the time when you should consider [for instance] induction for cooking.

Which, by the way, every single chef I know, every cook I know who has said "I don't want induction. I want to cook with real fire and real flame" – every single one of them has changed their mind. Everyone I've known has changed their mind after they got over the initial learning curve of induction, and now they're obsessed with it and they love it. The nice thing is that you don't have to deal with the benzene pumping into your house, the exhaust issues, the gas challenges.

So, the one good thing with these technologies is they're not only a lot more efficient to run because you're not running power and gas, they're just cleaner and safer, and healthier as well.

When you look at that leak-detection device, Phyn, that's something you can put in at any time because it just goes on your main water line coming into the house. It's a $550 device, and it will prevent you from ever having a leak or wasted water.

When it comes to something like a smart panel, you need to be doing a full panel rewire. That can cost several thousand dollars to put in, and the devices as well. You want to do that usually when you're doing a renovation.

Otherwise, if you have a hot water heater that's about to die, if you have a range or a fridge or something like that that's going to die, that's when you want to look at the energy-efficient options or the smart options.

I always say you don't need to break the bank going out of your way to replace an appliance that you just bought five years ago. If it's working perfectly fine, don't worry about it. But as these things come up, that's when you want to make sure you're getting the smartest, latest technology.

Lance Ulanoff: And it seems like the smartest latest technology is also usually the most energy efficient…

Jonathan Scott: Exactly. They're finding new ways all the time. I attend all of the conferences where the latest technologies are coming down. I know I've seen you at CES, but also ARPA-E [Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy, a US government agency that funds the research and development of advanced energy technologies] has this conference all around power and everything like that. There’s some really cool ideas floating around.

One of the ones that we're seeing is appliances that have battery backup within them. For example, ranges. You're cooking and the power goes out. A lot of people don't realize that if you have a battery backup, that only usually covers about four circuits. The batteries aren't covering your entire house; it's covering four circuits. You have to decide what you want to back up.

There are some appliances now where even if the power goes out, you trickle charge. Normally, a range, if it's electric or induction, it'll have a 220-volt plug, and so that's a lot of power, and it's also more expensive when you're running to it.

They have some new ones now that are only a 110-volt plug. So, just a regular outlet... it trickle-charges over time. Throughout the night, it fills up its battery. Then, when you're actually cooking, it's drawing from the battery and not from your power source. If most people are cooking at dinner time, that's when most utilities charge the most money for their power because that's when everybody's using it.

Lance Ulanoff: That's really smart because in my house right now, we're having some discussions about doing laundry and things, and dishwashing at what time. Because we just got this note, "Don't do it in peak time." There's a problem with that. You're going to, maybe, incur higher costs, and I hadn't actually heard about that [new technology]. Basically, what they sound like is hybrid devices. It's like hybrid cars, right?

Jonathan Scott: Yeah. And it's early. These technologies will improve. And even on the laundry side, GE has their Profile, which is this all-in-one washer-dryer. And in the past, a lot of these all-in-one units, they never dried very well. This system is incredible. So, first of all, you don't have to vent it. It's a heat pump system. It takes all the moisture out of the clothes. You don't have to have a vent going anywhere. It also only plugs in with 110 volts, so you don't have to run 220 volts.

You can essentially put laundry in a place where you would never have been able to put laundry before because wouldn't have been very easy. And it automatically puts your load over from wash to dry. If you have everything in there and you don't need to go and change it over, you don't have to do anything. I think it does the full [wash and dry] cycle in two hours, or an hour and a half.

All of these technologies, when they first come out, they're a little awkward. It's kind of the awkward teen years of technology. And then once it actually takes root, things will be totally different.

To be totally honest, my opinion of where the future is going to be in not only heating but also powering your home. Right now all of the appliances, so whether it's induction cooking, VRF [variable refrigerant flow, a type of HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) system], or heat pump for heating and cooling. You do not need gas for your heating and cooling anymore. Even in cold climates, they've proven that the new heat pump technology is incredibly efficient.

The only place where right now, all-electric technology is not great is in instant hot water heating. If you want tankless hot water heating, if you go all electric, it just draws so much power that it ends up being expensive, and it also means you have to upgrade your service, usually. If you have room for a hot water tank, then a hot water system is the way to go. That's no problem. You just have to size it appropriately.

But give it another five, 10 years. I think the future is going to be every room where you need hot water – kitchen, bathroom – underneath the baseboard, there's that wasted space there. There's going to be a small unit in each of those that heats on demand as you need it. And that way, you're not traveling it all through your house in pipes, letting it heat up and cool down instantly.

TechRadar: And you're wasting the water in that distance. First, you turn it on, all the cold water comes, and then you get the hot water.

Jonathan Scott: Exactly. The other thing that I think is going to be in the further future, I think we're going to have some source of power that we bring into our home like a battery that powers the entire house for a period of time – a year, who knows what it would be. But at some point, I don't think it's going to be necessarily this interconnected grid system. I think it's going to be an independent power source, and that will transform our ability to build in areas that don't have a grid system set up.

TechRadar: Right. I was going to say, especially in far-flung areas where they don't have all that infrastructure set up already, it makes some sense. So that kind of segues into where we are right now in sort of the solar space.

I get people coming to my door once a month pitching me on it, and we've talked about it. We just haven't, because of the investment, the cost of it, and subsidies coming and going. But you were very invested in that the last time we talked [Jonathan produced a 2019 documentary on the subject]. I'm kind of curious where you see solar energy for homes right now.

Jonathan Scott: There are a lot of utilities that still fight homeowners being in charge of their own power and producing their own power because that takes money away from them. I've never agreed with that because it's sort of distributing the power so that you don't have the blackouts like Texas had or the surges and whatnot that California suffers from in the summer.

I do think distributed energy is a good idea. Depending on where you live, the payback period is a lot shorter or a lot longer because again, some jurisdictions, strangely enough, it seems to be the sunniest places, tend to have the worst solar policies. Shouldn't be the case; but you're right, it's a cost-prohibitive factor, and then the costs have come down a lot, but that tends to be when people decide, “Do I really want to do this? Do I want to do something that's good for the environment but I don't have to put the cash up, so I'll lease the system.”

There are companies that still lease it, like SunRun. They've also switched to a sales platform, too, because most people, I say, if you can afford to buy your system, you're better off doing that because then you reap the benefits once you pay back the system, and that cash goes into your pocket. If you lease it, you're doing something good for the environment. You might see a little bit of a reduction in your monthly costs, but you're not really going to benefit in a big way, you're just doing something good for the environment.

My thought on it is, be real cautious. There are some technologies like the Tesla Solar System, which is what I have on my roof here. They don't produce as much as your newer PV panels, but this is a historic home that we're in, so we wanted to make sure it architecturally looked like slate tile, which it does. We couldn't do PV panels on it.

Know where you are. Know what you're producing. If you have the ability to have the standard PV panels, it's a better way to go. You're going to get more efficiency out of it. But, just make sure as well that you're aware certain times of the year, you don't get the same production. If you have trees blocking the sun from hitting your roof, which I do have a section of my roof here that doesn't get sun, that affects your production. But overall, even from when I put my first system on in Vegas, I instantly saw my power bills drop to about 10% of what they were before. It really does have a positive effect.

TechRadar: I want to switch gears a little bit because I just have a couple more questions, and I'm curious about sort of sticking more with a little bit of the smart home idea. Do you run into a lot of people who are really very interested in the idea of the centralized control, and being able to talk to their house and have things happen? And is that something that's easy to do or hard to do?

Jonathan Scott: That's kind of a trick question. Yes, I do believe simplifying the consumer experience is important. Having a centralized control – my house here I use Control 4, Drew uses Apple's Home setup. In fact, Drew, my brother, is very connected. He's got the ability, he can talk to it.

Every room, when he walks in the room, he's got motion sensors, so it turns the light on, and none of that's monitored by another company. He does it all himself.

Mine, I have a company that comes in and does it. These days, and I think there are going to be a lot more jobs in home automation and AI integration as well, because it's the future of where the home is going to be.

It is getting a little bit complicated, especially when it comes to the security side of things. The big thing for me is making sure that no one could ever hack your network or create some vulnerability where all of a sudden somebody can get in and access your devices. So that's the scariest thing. You have to know what you're doing to make sure you don't have that.

TechRadar: Last question, because I know we're running short on time. Have you heard about this dumb home trend where people are like, I don't want any technology in my home. And have you encountered that with any of your renovations?

Jonathan Scott: I mean, there's never a shortage of dumb people in the world, that's for sure, but as far as dumb homes, the only time I've ever had clients who have said they don't want to put any smart technology is usually a cost factor. They want to put [the money] into the flooring or the cabinets. They want to put their budget towards something that they can see. And sometimes they don't think of the smart-tech aspect of it.

The suggestion I usually make is, if nothing else, wire your home so that inside the walls, you already have everything you need. If you want to run an access point, expand your Wi-Fi, you can do that. The biggest problem I have in a lot of newer homes is that there's bad Wi-Fi throughout.

People need Wi-Fi today. They want strong Wi-Fi. So, no matter what, I usually say, at least when you're running all of your electrical, run your Cat 6 [Ethernet cabling] to anywhere where you may want to have a Wi-Fi hub, and you will thank yourself later for it.

TechRadar: The one smart thing I did with my house when I did my big upgrade, I ran Cat 6 to every room in the house.

Jonathan Scott: Yeah, smart.

TechRadar: And believe me, yeah, we needed the mesh network.

Jonathan Scott: I take it to the next level at my house here. Not only do I have a mesh network everywhere, I also have my own cell repeaters on the property. So, where we are, there is no cell service in and around the properties, but I'm the one place where we have solid cell service here, and it's because I ran my own repeaters.

TechRadar: Then the last question. Do you think that it's fair to say that a smart home is generally going to be a more sustainable home?

Jonathan Scott: Yes, because it's two-factor: One, if you have something like a smart thermostat, it's turning down your demand at times when you don't need it, which is actually saving you money, saving you energy in your home. That's a good thing. But also, these technologies remind us of what our use is.

When you see in an app it says, “Hey, you've got excessive water usage happening here,” and you discover that your friend who's staying in the guest room is taking four-hour showers. These are all things that are also going to save you money.

What I like is a lot of the data from these technologies, it's just reminding us and almost gamifying the fact that we're like, "What can I turn that off. I don't need that running. Why is this still plugged in?"

TechRadar: Right. That makes sense.

Deep sleep, or slow-wave sleep, has a restorative effect on our bodies - helping us to fight viruses and feel refreshed the next day.

But what is deep sleep? As we sleep our body cycles through four different stages of sleep, and after two stages of light sleep our bodies finally fall into a deep sleep. We need up to 2 hours a night of deep sleep to feel ourselves the next day, but some factors can stop us from reaching that state. 

Tracy Hannigan, a qualified sleep coach, explains what deep sleep is, and why it's so important for our bodies, plus we also look at the latest research on why not getting enough deep sleep can harm your short term and long term health.

What is deep sleep?

To understand deep sleep it's first important to know about sleep cycles and how they can affect our health. As we fall asleep we cycle through four different stages of sleep - light, medium, deep, and then REM sleep. Each stage prepares our bodies for the next stage of sleep, and the more sleep we get the longer we stay in each stage during the sleep cycle.

So, what effect does deep sleep have on our bodies? "Stage 3, or deep sleep is our most restorative sleep, and is when our bodies do a tremendous amount of healing and rejuvenation through the activity of our immune system," explains Hannigan.

What happens during deep sleep?

By this point, our bodies have already relaxed - meaning our heart rate and breathing has slowed down to the lowest possible rate in the sleep cycle. This happens as your brain switches from a waking state to a sleep state. 

Our muscles also start to relax, meaning we are exerting less energy - therefore fewer calories are being burned. It's not until we reach REM sleep that we start to burn more calories.

But, what are the other benefits of deep sleep? This study, from the University of Chicago, shows that during this stage of sleep, a growth hormone is also produced - allowing the body to grow and develop. Our immune system is also strengthened, while our energy levels are also restored.

• Can naps help you sleep better? We asked a sleep expert

How much deep sleep do you need?

We tend to get more light sleep as we cycle through the stages of sleep, but deep and REM sleep is important, as they allow our bodies to recover.

Studies show, to feel restored and focused the next day, that getting 13 - 23 per cent of deep sleep, so around 1 - 2 hours (depending on how long you are sleeping for) is a good average to aim for. Most of us fall into a deep sleep quite quickly in our sleeping patterns and we then spend more time in lighter and REM periods later on as we cycle through the various stages. 

If you're not sure how much deep sleep you are getting, invest in one of the best sleep trackers or best smartwatches. The sleep tracking will vary depending on what tracker you have, but most have apps they pair with which can accurately tell you how much deep sleep you've had every night.

What causes lack of deep sleep?

We all need around 7 - 9 hours of sleep a night - so if you find yourself tired and getting sick then chances are you may not be getting enough sleep, and probably deep sleep too.

Getting enough sleep, but still feel tired? It could be down to a few factors such as too much alcohol or other stimulants like caffeine, stress or even a sleep disorder. 

Even just a couple of alcoholic drinks can affect our sleep, says the sleep expert: "Alcohol significantly disrupts deep sleep and at even moderate quantities can cause our brain to ‘skip’ it altogether. This effect can last for longer than the night after drinking."

While stress can also have an impact on our deep sleep state: "Stress and anxiety promote arousal, which can cause us to spend more time in lighter sleep. This is a normal response, as our brains want us to be alert when we feel we are in ‘danger’ (aka feeling stressed) - but it can mean we spend less time in a deeper sleep than we could."

Sleep disorders such as insomnia or sleep apnea, or even exploding head syndrome, could also mean you wake up in the night or you don't get the amount of deep or REM sleep you need. 

• How to stop snoring

What are the dangers of not getting enough deep sleep?

Stress, exercise and lack of the right vitamins and minerals can cause our immune system to weaken, while sleep, especially deep sleep allows our immune system to strengthen. Not getting enough sleep can then mean we get ill more or our health starts to deteriorate - with lack of deep and REM sleep associated with heart attacks, dementia and other chronic diseases.

While other dangers of not getting enough sleep mean we find it hard to mentally concentrate or feel alert, explains Hannigan.

"People with insufficient restorative sleep can have difficulty concentrating, especially later in the day, and can be more emotionally fragile. They could also have fuzzy memories from lack of memory formation, we will feel fatigued from lack of opportunity for our bodies to heal, and feel sleepy from having unrestorative sleep." 

How to get more deep sleep

Hannigan says that sleeping as deeply as possible is affected by two things:  "Our tendency to be interrupted in sleep and the amount of sleep pressure we have built up during the day. 

She goes on to advise: "Build as much sleep pressure as possible by being awake as long as possible (avoiding going to bed too early) and being physically active during the day. Sleep pressure is responsible for how deeply we sleep and is built by wakefulness and physical activity."

Unless you've missed a considerable amount of sleep the night before try and avoid naps, and if you do keep them to a minimum of 20 - 30 minutes. While cutting out or down on stimulants such as coffee and alcohol can help you get more deep sleep.

"Avoiding alcohol consumption, or stopping alcohol intake many hours before bedtime, can preserve the integrity of our deepest stage of sleep by allowing enough time for the ethanol to be metabolised," explains Hannigan. 

Getting the right sleep window for you and improving your sleep hygiene will also mean you're less likely to be disturbed while you sleep. Try and keep your bedroom cool and dark, while choosing the best mattress and the best pillow will mean you'll sleep comfortably all night.

If you're not a morning person, then getting up early can feel like your world is crashing around you. First comes denial: if you shut your eyes and hit snooze, maybe it'll all turn out to be a bad dream. Then, when you face reality, comes misery as you slump out of bed, fix yourself a coffee and try to shake yourself out of your slumber.

Finally, as the caffeine kicks in and fights with your sluggishness, comes anger, as you curse the world and everyone in it. But it doesn't have to be like this.

Whatever age you are, if you need to wake up early on a regular basis, then a few simple adjustments to your lifestyle and habits will help you do so without feeling tired. And that means that even if you're lying in comfort on the best mattress and best pillow, you'll still be happy to get out of bed.

Read on to find out how you can wake up early and still feel energized, motivated, and ready to face the world.

1. Establish a regular sleep schedule

The cornerstone of how to wake up early without feeling tired is establishing a regular sleep schedule. In plain English, that means going to bed and waking up at the same time, every single day. Yes, even on weekends. (Okay, we know that last bit sucks, but ultimately, the overall benefits will outweigh the joys of the Saturday morning lie-in.)

"A regular sleep pattern is very important, because the entire body is synchronized by its circadian rhythm and sleep wake is an important rhythm," explains Dr. Abhinav Singh, medical director of the Indiana Sleep Center, contributor to SleepFoundation.org and author of Sleep to Heal: 7 Simple Steps to Better Sleep.

Of course, getting in bed doesn't always mean sleep. "So routines are key," he adds. "That means: have a wind-down ritual prior to bedtime. Shower. Journal. Read. Breathe. It's just as important as your morning routine. Remember, tomorrow starts tonight!"

2. Get enough sleep

Having a routine won't work, of course, if you don't allow yourself enough sleep in total. Many adults think that five to six hours a night is sufficient: it isn't. The consensus among sleep experts is that you should aim for between seven and nine hours of sleep each night.

This means that if you need to get up early, you may have to start going to bed earlier than you'd like. And as a grown-up, that may bristle.

If you're young, free and single, you may want to stay up and party. If you've got kids, you may relish the "free time" you get after you've put them to bed. Or maybe you're just enjoying a Netflix boxset, and can't resist "just one more episode".

In such cases, there's no magic solution: if you want to get enough sleep, you're just going to have to compromise on your preferred lifestyle. As Dr. Singh says, you basically need to give yourself a good talking to. "Tell yourself, Better Sleep = Better Health =  Better Life," he says.

"And the converse is true as well: Poor Sleep = Poor Health= Poor Life."

Soon enough, you'll have established your new routine, and be feeling the benefits of feeling more refreshed, energized and happier every morning. And if it takes a few extra days to get through that Netflix series… is that really so bad?

3. Avoid caffeine and alcohol before bed

A glass of wine, a cup of coffee or a cigarette can be a lovely treat before bed. But as stimulants, all of these substances will disrupt your natural sleep patterns, and make it harder to wake up in the morning.

One study, for instance, found that 400mg of caffeine (about four or five cups of coffee) taken 0, 3, or even 6 hours prior to bedtime significantly disrupts sleep. So if you want to wake up feeling refreshed, it's best to avoid them for at least a few hours before bedtime.

This advice often falls on deaf ears, of course. Because many people say they can't sleep without caffeine, alcohol, and/or nicotine. And in the short term, they may – in one sense – be right, says Dr. Singh. "It probably has become a conditioned part of their evening sleep routine; like a pacifier," he explains.

Indeed, Dr. Singh is no fundamentalist on the issue. "In small amounts, if it is not bothering your ability to fall or stay asleep and you feel fine the next day without noticeable consequences, then you're probably okay doing it," he points out. "But in general, all of these stimulants have anti-sleep properties, such as lowering the ability to go to deep sleep, increasing snoring, increasing time to fall asleep and fragmenting sleep once initiated."

• how to stop snoring

4. Create a relaxing sleep environment

Another key element in achieving a good sleep routine is to create the right bedroom environment. That means blocking out any noise distractions that could disrupt your sleep. It also means making your room as dark as possible, because as studies show, the modern world's use of electric light has significantly disrupted the circadian rhythms that help us sleep.

"Your bedroom should be cool, dark, quiet and light-free," says Dr. Singh. "Eye masks can be a good idea. Ambient sounds from a white noise machine can help in certain cases." Or, if you prefer, the best sleep earplugs are another way to block out unwanted sounds.

5. Limit your screen time

Spending all evening on your phone, tablet or laptop can be irritating to people you live with. But even if you live alone, it's good to put down these devices long before bedtime.

The blue-green portion of the light emitted by electronic screens is particularly damaging, explains Dr. Singh. "That's because it can reduce your body's natural melatonin production, and delay and deplete the quality of sleep. It's like driving a car with low tire pressure: you feel the drag and the bumps more.

"So I'd recommend turning off your screens at least an hour before going to bed," he adds. "Also, put on your 'do not disturb' mode much earlier: two to three hours before bed."

6. Take a bath

Do you feel so groggy in the morning that you need a shower to wake you up? Then maybe you should reverse your routine, and have one before going to bed instead.

"A bath or a warm shower can help with sleep in the following ways," explains Dr. Singh. "Firstly, it lowers your core body temperature, which facilitates melatonin release and helps sleep. It also relaxes your muscles and skin and helps you feel calmed and ready for sleep.

"There's also a small amount of research that suggests it may increase the time you spend in the deeper states of sleep," he adds. "In my opinion, 20 minutes or less in the bath is enough, and the water should be warm but not hot."

7. Use natural light to your advantage

Our bodies evolved to respond to the natural rhythms of daytime and night time. So if we experience light in the morning it helps us wake much more naturally than if we're lying in darkness. This helps regulate your circadian rhythm and make it easier to wake up feeling refreshed.

For this reason, it's a good idea to open your curtains or blinds as soon as you wake up. Alternatively, if you need to wake during the dark hours, consider investing in a wake up light, which gradually lights up in a way that mimics the rising of the sun.

8. Avoid the snooze button

When you don't want to get up in the morning, it's tempting to hit the snooze button on your alarm clock. However, doing so on a regular basis can actually be detrimental to your sleep health.

When you hit snooze and go back to sleep, you're interrupting your sleep cycle and potentially causing sleep fragmentation. This can make you feel even more tired and groggy when you finally do wake up, as your body hasn't had the chance to complete a full sleep cycle.

For this reason, Dr. Singh suggests you limit your use of the snooze button. "Only snooze once, and for less than 10 minutes," he recommends. "Excessive snoozing is like wasting jet fuel while circling a runway and not landing! If you feel the need for excessive snoozing, then you are not getting enough sleep, so you may need to talk to your doctor about this."

We won't lie: some of these tips may involve a lot of adjustment to your life, and you may struggle to break the bad sleep habits that you've built up over a lifetime. But once you've successfully incorporated all of this advice into your daily routine, you'll find it is possible to wake up early without feeling tired, and start your day off on the right foot.

As Dr. Singh says: "Muscles are not built with one visit to the gym, are they? So you need to train the sleep muscles before you feel the benefits." Be patient, be consistent, and you'll soon find that early mornings is a time you look forward to, rather than dread.

This article is part of TechRadar's Sleep Week 2023 celebration (running until Saturday 19 March), a week-long look at all things slumber. We'll be bringing you proven techniques and tips to help you sleep better, and have rounded-up all the top-rated tech to transform your sleep.

Fujitsu has announced the next chip to follow the A64FX, the ARM processor that is used in one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, the Fugaku.

The new chip from the Japanese tech giant was announced in a presentation as part of the Fujitsu ActivateNow: Technology Summit, held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. Fujitsu CTO Vivek Mahajan said that it will be an "Arm-based CPU for Next-gen DC" set for release sometime in 2028.

With the working title of 'MONAKA', Fujitsu told The Register that its focus was on making a high performance chip with better energy efficiency, saying that it wanted to contribute to "the realization of a carbon-neutral and sustainable society."

Energy savings

The new processor is said to be able to increase HPC workloads, as well as deliver optimal performance for AI and data analysis applications, all whilst providing "overwhelming energy efficiency" over coterminous rivals. Fujitsu claims it will have 1.7 times the application performance with double the performance per watt. 

MONAKA is part of the program run by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) research agency in Japan. It's goal is to increase energy savings by 40% within the nation's data centers come 2030.

Fujitsu is also contributing to this with other developments besides MONAKA, such as low power consumption accelerators, smart network interface cards (NIC) that use photonics, and disaggregation technology.

It is speculated that the new chip will therefore be more akin to those used in servers catering to cloud storage, cloud hosting and colocation providers. However, these chips are less concerned with saving energy as such rather than achieving full utilization. 

"The next-generation DC CPU (MONAKA) that we're developing will have a wider range of features and will prove more energy efficient," a Fujitsu spokesperson told The Register. "The range of potential applications is wider than that of the A64FX, which has special characteristics (e.g., interconnects) specific to Fugaku."

Details are scarce at this point, it seems likely that MONAKA will have the same standout features as the A64FX, such as 28Gbps Tofu-D interconnect, high-speed HBM2 stacked memory, and 512-bit Scalable Vector Extensions.

• Here are the best small business servers to power your firm

Want to ensure a cosy bedroom when the temperature drops outside? It can be tempting to just pop the heating on, but there are some simple things you should do first. These tips will help trap the warm air in and keep draughts out, keeping your room at a comfortable temperature even when it's wintry outside. Here's your guide to what to do…

How warm should my bedroom be for sleep?

"The optimal temperature for sleeping is around 16-19C, says Theresa Schnorbach, a sleep scientist who works with bed brand Emma (one of our best mattress picks). Hotter or colder than that, and it'll probably affect your sleep quality, making you more likely to wake up in the night feeling uncomfortably chilly or too warm.

• Now's a great time to buy a new mattress – browse the cheapest mattress sales live today

4 things to do to trap warm air in your bedroom

1. Swap in thick curtains

"As well as improving sleep by keeping out light, thick curtains can have the added benefit of keeping your room warm and preventing colder air by your window from circulating around the room," says Theresa. Our recommendation is to go for a blackout blind or pair of blackout curtains – these are designed to completely block distracting ambient light, and most come with insulating properties too. 

2. Close your door

This is a simple one. If you leave your door open, you'll be letting the cold air from unoccupied rooms and corridors make its way into your bedroom. You might also want to consider adding a draught excluder, if you've got a big gap at the base of your bedroom door.

3. Add a rug

Carpeted rooms are often warmer than floorboards, but you can mimic the benefits by adding a thick rug to your bedroom floor during the winter months. 

4. Seal up cracks and crevices

"Even hairline cracks in walls or doors can have a big impact on how much cold air is able to enter your bedroom," says Theresa. If you have the necessary DIY skills, get these blocked up. Alternatively, call in a professional to do the job for you.

What tog should my duvet be in the winter?

Another important thing to do to ensure you stay cosy during winter nights is to make sure you're using the right bedding. A 13.5 tog duvet is designed for winter nights (or 10.5 tog, at a minimum (check out our best duvet guide for our recommendations). "Alternatively, you could use multiple blankets or an additional duvet to trap in more of your body heat, meaning it's less likely you’ll need to turn up your central heating," adds Theresa. 

It's the worst time of the year for anyone who appreciates lovely, crisp, line-dried bedding. If you manage to dry your washing outside for most of the year and don't have a tumble dryer (or if you do have a tumble dryer but can't bear the escalating expense of running it right now), how are you supposed to dry your bedding naturally at the moment?

Bed sheets and duvet covers have a lot of surface area, making them hard to hang on a clothes horse, and if they're not dried properly they can go moldy. There's no point in having the best mattress, best duvet and best pillows if they're encased in damp, musty bedding, so what's the best way to dry it without a tumble dryer?

Step forward James Higgins, eucalyptus bedding expert and CEO of Ethical Bedding. He's come up with some useful tips for drying your bed sheets naturally and efficiently, without having to fall back on an energy-guzzling tumble dryer. Read on to learn how to get that bedding washed, dried and back on the bed before bedtime.

• How to clean a mattress topper

1. Wash your bedding first thing in the morning

For the best chance to get your sheets dry, says James, get an early start. If you do your wash first thing in the morning, by the time it's done the house will be warming up, improving the odds of your sheets air-drying quickly.

"Temperatures in the home drop considerably overnight as this is when the house is at its coldest, so avoid drying your sheets overnight by giving them the best chances possible in the day,” he adds.

2. Dry your sheets in the kitchen

If there's room, the best place in the house to dry your sheets is the kitchen. "The kitchen space tends to be the warmest part of the house," says James, "as it’s where we cook and there is plenty of footfall traffic."

You can speed things up, too, if you're cooking with the oven; simply put your drying rack next to the oven door. "Although," notes James, "if you are cooking smellier food then I wouldn’t recommend this option as it will cling to the sheets." Turning on your cooker's extractor fan can help, too, as the increased airflow will make moisture evaporate faster.

3. Hang your sheets near the airing cupboard

Another reliably warm place for drying your sheets is near your airing cupboard. James points out that it gives off plenty of heat throughout the day, so you can make the most of it without using any extra electricity. And once your sheets are nearly dry, we'd suggest folding and putting them in the airing cupboard to finish them off.

4. Iron your sheets under a dry towel

If you enjoy nicely-ironed sheets, you can dry and flatten them in one go with this trick. "We wouldn’t recommend putting direct heat from the iron on damp bedding," says James, "but add a towel into the mix and your problems are solved.

"When you have your ironing board set up, place your damp bed sheets on the board and lay an old dry towel over the top. Then put your iron on a medium to high setting and apply the heat of the iron onto the towel. This will transfer the heat through the towel onto the bed sheets and dry and iron them in one go – cutting out the drying time!"

5. Finish them off with a hairdryer

Inevitably you'll get to a point where everything's mostly dry, except for a few annoying bits of your bedding that are slightly thicker and take longer to dry, such as the corner of a duvet cover. But James has an easy fix for that: "In this case," he says, "use a hairdryer for a couple of minutes to dry off those final patches." Sorted!

Read more:

• 8 ways to make your mattress last longer
• How to wash pillows in a washing machine without ruining them

I can't blame Jackery for positioning the promotion of its flagship solar generator at IFA 2022 in Berlin next to a giant RV camper mock-up. That's the pitch: Buy a solar generator and take it camping.

Enough with the camping song and dance. We all know what these environmentally-friendly power-source devices are increasingly becoming about: They're tools for survival.

Think I'm kidding? Look at the headlines. Floods, fires and hurricanes. Power outages are constantly with us. We need reliable power and not to rely on fossil fuel-powered systems.

These were the thoughts racing through my mind as I watched Jackery's European head of marketing Ricky Ma explain the explosion in camping and other outward-bound activities during the pandemic and his 10-year-old company's development of an array of solar-powered generators, panels, and other earth-friendly technologies (including an adorable, electricity-generating personal windmill).

But the star of this show (and it was a show, with break dancers and a German chanteuse expertly singing popular American tunes) was the new Jackery Solar Generator 1000 Pro.

I've seen my share of portable solar panels, though I will say Jackery's are lighter and more stylish than most, but not many solar-powered generators. This one certainly has some impressive specs:

• 1002 wh capacity
• 230V, Dual Power Delivery of 100W
• Quick Charge
• USB-C ports
• AC-charging option

More importantly, though, the portable box can charge in under two hours using four of Jackery's solar charging panels. Jackery told us that this works even on a cloudy day.

Is it also heavy? Yes. I grabbed the 25-lb (11.3 kg) box and was surprised by its heft. I would not want to carry it up into the mountains. However, putting it outside my home after losing power during a blackout, brownout, or hurricane? Absolutely.

Is it bulky? At 13-in. x 10-in. x 10-in., yep. Though, I was tickled by the image Jackery showed of someone using the bread-box-sized generator on their nightstand. I think I might prefer to connect the generator to an extension cord.

At 46 decibels, the Jackery Solar Generator 1000 Pro is about half as loud as a diesel generator, but it's not silent.

At $1,299 (£1,120, $1,900 AU), it's also at least double the price of a fossil-fuel-powered generator and that doesn't include the cost of the solar panels, which will probably run you a few hundred dollars each.

On the other hand, fuel prices are still sky high and in a disaster, diesel and gas can be hard to come by. Sunlight? Usually, it's in plentiful supply.

As I walk the halls of IFA in Berlin and companies talk about sustainable and earth friendly-gadgets, I see the subtext. The earth is a mess and we need to protect not just our pocketbooks from pricy energy costs, but ourselves from an unpredictable world.

You won't hear companies like Jackery pitching their products with tag lines like "Prepare for the worst!" or "At least you'll still have power!" but they have to know what we're thinking. I know what I am and I might just prepare by buying a solar-powered generator.

IFA 2022 is Europe's biggest tech show, and TechRadar is in Berlin to bring you all the breaking news and announcements, plus our hands-on first impressions of the new TVs, wearables, audio devices, and other gadgets on show.

Electricity is at the heart of so many gifts during the holiday season. So give the gift that will keep all those other gifts running. Give the ones you love EcoFlow portable power stations.

Designed to be sleek and stylish, EcoFlow’s portable power stations provide reliable backup power to all manner of electrical devices, from mobile phones to home appliances and other power-hungry equipment. 

If a storm knocks out the electricity, an EcoFlow portable power station will even keep the Christmas tree a-glowing!

Right now, many EcoFlow portable power stations are on sale especially for the holiday season. Here’s six powerful products that belong under the Christmas tree.

 EcoFlow RIVER mini gives you power at hand. Throw 210Wh of portable power in your backpack and be at ease knowing you’ve got power anywhere. The EcoFlow RIVER mini can be fully charged in 1.5 hours and with a 300W output (600W surge), it is ideal for 99% of consumer electronics. 

Just in time for the holidays, the RIVER mini’s MSRP of $349 has been reduced by $90 to $259. 

Buy it here. Or on Amazon.

Bring along the EcoFlow DELTA mini and keep your devices powered at all times. 

DELTA mini’s 882Wh capacity is perfect for power outages, outdoor adventures, and professional work. DELTA mini snags up to 300W from solar panels for a full recharge in three to six hours. It can also go from 0-100% in 96 minutes when charging from the wall.

Usually the DELTA mini has an MSRP of $999. However, to make gift-giving all that more affordable, the DELTA mini’s price has been cut by $100 to $899.

Buy it here. Or on Amazon.

Stay in charge of any situation with DELTA and keep your devices powered at all times. 

DELTA has a huge 1,260Wh capacity that’s perfect for power outages, outdoor adventures, and professional work. Power up to 13 devices simultaneously and recharge from 0% to 100% in 1.6 hours, which is 10 times the speed of most portable power stations in the market.

A  $300 discount brings the DELTA’s MSRP of $1399 down to just $1099 in time for holiday gift-giving.

Buy it here. Or on Amazon.

A single EcoFlow DELTA Max unit packs a 2kWh capacity that is expandable up to 6kWh with DELTA Max Smart Extra Batteries. 

This means when a blackout hits, you can continue to power your important home devices such as your fridge and lights for hours on end. 

With EcoFlow’s X-Boost technology, DELTA Max can power heavy-duty devices up to 3400W. Plus, DELTA Max charges up safely and rapidly from 0-80% in just 65 minutes

To mark the holiday season, the $2,099 (MSRP) DELTA Max has been reduced in price by $200 to $1,899.

Buy it here. Or on Amazon.

The EcoFlow 110W Solar Panel has a high conversion efficiency of 21-22%. Combine two 110W Solar Panels with an EcoFlow DELTA Portable Power station to enjoy improved solar charging in cold and cloudy environments - fully recharged in seven to 14 hours! 

Gift-givers take note: Right now this ‘DELTA’ bundle has been cut by $698 from an MSRP of $2,197 down to $1,499.

Buy it here. Or on Amazon.

 The EcoFlow DELTA Max (1600) is a scaled version of the EcoFlow DELTA Max. With a huge capacity of 1612Wh, the EcoFlow DELTA Max (1600) can power 15 devices at once with a 2000W output. With the X-Boost mode on, it can power some 2800W appliances. Pair the EcoFlow DELTA Max (1600) with four 110W Solar Panels, and it can be fully charged by solar in 4.5 to 9 hours.

The bundle also comes with impressive savings: The DELTA Max Bundle’s MSRP of $3399 has been dropped by $1100 to $2299.

Buy it here. Or on Amazon.

About EcoFlow: https://ecoflow.com/

Having more than enough power wherever you go is a must-have these days. Fortunately, EcoFlow has a range of portable power stations designed to fulfill every need - and their prices have been slashed especially for Black Friday! 

EcoFlow RIVER Pro: portable power for extended vacations 

Step into the wild with a massive 720Wh of battery capacity. EcoFlow’s RIVER Pro is the powerhouse for your off-grid adventure. 

Keep up to 10 devices powered on at once and recharge in record times via car (in 8 hrs), solar (4-8 hrs), or standard AC outlets (in 96 mins).

The RIVER Pro’s MSRP is $649. For Black Friday only, it has been reduced by $100 to $549.

Buy it here. Or at Amazon. 

EcoFlow DELTA mini: prosumer backup power 

Bring along the EcoFlow DELTA mini and keep your devices powered at all times. 

DELTA mini’s 882Wh capacity is perfect for power outages, outdoor adventures, and professional work. DELTA mini snags up to 300W from solar panels for a full recharge in three to six hours. It can also go from 0-100% in 96 minutes when charging from the wall.

Normally priced at an MSRP of $999, the DELTA mini’s price has been slashed by $150 to $849 for Black Friday.

Buy it here. Or on Amazon. 

EcoFlow DELTA: essential backup power 

Stay in charge of any situation with DELTA and keep your devices powered at all times. 

DELTA has a huge 1260Wh capacity that’s perfect for power outages, outdoor adventures, and professional work. Power up to 13 devices simultaneously and recharge from 0% to 100% in 1.6 hours, which is 10 times the speed of most portable power stations in the market.

A $300 discount brings the DELTA’s MSRP of $1399 down to just $1099 for Black Friday.

Buy it here. Or on Amazon. 

EcoFlow DELTA Max: home backup power master 

A single EcoFlow DELTA Max unit packs a 2kWh capacity that is expandable up to 6kWh with DELTA Max smart extra batteries. 

This means when a blackout hits, you can continue to power your important home devices such as your fridge and lights for hours on end. 

With EcoFlow’s X-Boost technology, DELTA Max can power heavy-duty devices up to 3400W. Plus, DELTA Max charges up safely and rapidly from 0-80% in just 65 minutes

The best part: For Black Friday, the $2,099 (MSRP) DELTA Max has been reduced by $200 to $1,899. 

DELTA Bundle: EcoFlow DELTA + 2x 160W Solar Panels 

The EcoFlow 160W Solar Panel has a high conversion efficiency of 21-22%. Combine two 160W Solar Panels with an EcoFlow DELTA Portable Power station to enjoy improved solar charging in cold and cloudy environments - fully recharged in five to 10 hours! 

The best part: For Black Friday only, this ‘DELTA’ bundle has been cut by $650 from an MSRP of $2,299 down to $1,649.

Buy it here. Or on Amazon.

About EcoFlow: https://ecoflow.com/ 

In an effort to work towards sustainable gaming, Sony has revealed the PS5 will be much more energy efficient than its predecessor, the PS4.

Jim Ryan, Sony president and CEO, announced in a post on the PlayStation Blog that the PS5 has a gameplay suspension feature that uses less energy than the PS4 - with Ryan estimating that the PS5's consumption can be achieved at 0.5 watts.

• PS5: all the games, specs, news, and rumors for Sony’s Playstation 5
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Sustainable gaming

"The next-generation PlayStation console will include the possibility to suspend gameplay with much lower power consumption than PS4," Ryan wrote in the blog. "If just one million users enable this feature, it would save equivalent to the average electricity use of 1,000 US homes."

This is part of a sustainability drive by Sony that sees the company joining other leaders in the gaming industry to "make formal commitments to contribute to the efforts of the UN Environment committee through a new partnership, the Playing for the Planet alliance". 

This drive not only sees next-generation hardware affected, but will impact the game's Sony considers bringing to its platform.

"Our commitments are not only related to hardware and operations, we are also keen to help inform people interested in sustainability goals," Ryan writes. "We have committed to working with the industry and climate experts to develop reference information for use by game developers that wish to include sustainability themes in games. In addition, we will investigate potential PS VR applications that can raise awareness of climate issues and climate experts."

• Best upcoming games 2019: most anticipated titles for PS4, Xbox One and Switch

The bottom line

August's Smart Lock and Smart Lock Pro are wirelessly connected deadbolts aimed at making it easier for you to come and go. 

Neither model replaces your existing deadbolt, so you can still use your keys on the outside. But, both smart locks add an easy way for you, your family, or your friends to unlock the door with a phone, and the devices can automatically lock up behind you.

The base August Smart Lock is more affordable at $149 (about £110), but requires a separate August Connect Wi-Fi Bridge for more advanced features.

The August Smart Lock Pro has more features, and it comes bundled with the August Connect Wi-Fi Bridge, giving it even more functionality out of the box. But, it's starting price of $279 (about £210) is steep.

August Smart Locks: what you need to know

August's Smart Lock is slick looking, and the Smart Lock Pro is goes even further. The locks are also subtle, as both locks can mount onto existing single-cylinder deadbolts, replacing the locking mechanism on the interior side of the door while the keyhole on the exterior remains the same. So, someone looking at your lock from the outside wouldn't know it's a connected smart lock.

Both locks let you use your phone as the key, with Bluetooth, GPS, and the August app working together to automatically unlock the door when you get home. The locks can also automatically lock when you leave. 

Helpfully, August's DoorSense will determine if your door is actually closed and locked, or if it's been left ajar.

August's Connect Wi-Fi Bridge adds more functionality to each lock, but only the Smart Lock Pro comes with it bundled into the package. The Bridge gives the Smart Lock support for Amazon Echo and Alexa, Google Home and Google Assistant, and remote control of the lock when you're out of Bluetooth Range. The Pro model goes further, with support for Apple HomeKit and Siri.

For smart home fans looking to integrate a smart lock into their existing ecosystem, the Smart Lock Pro's support for Z-Wave Plus will make it a better choice.

Users can share access codes with friends and family, so they won't need a key to get in. And, August's app also has integration for apps like Airbnb, making it easier to get in without having to worry about lost, stolen, or copied keys. The August app will also let you keep track of who has come in.

Should I buy it?

Shoppers looking to just get a smart lock have a good pick in the base August Smart Lock. It's affordable price, nice design, and potential for upgrades make it a good starting point for anyone.

The August Smart Lock Pro is a harder sell, given the high price. But, shoppers hoping for an easy-to-install, easy-to-use smart lock with great looks, support for the most popular voice assistants, and remote control over the internet, the Smart Lock Pro is a complete package.

• Best smart locks
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Australian energy provider Origin Energy has announced its plans to enter the smart home market with the introduction of an affordable starter kit, called Home HQ, that includes many of the essential smart home components.

The kit contains a gateway, smart plug, smart light bulb, temperature and humidity sensor, motion sensor, and two entry sensors. That’s a fair bit of gadgetry for only $199, and Origin’s hoping it’ll make for an excellent gateway drug (pardon the pun) into the world of smart home technology.

• Google home review

In a public statement, Origin’s Executive General Manager Jon Briskin explained that, “Home HQ uses open-source technology, which means that it will be able to connect many different smart devices over time,” and added that it would run through a single app, indicating that it would be a simple process to expand your collection with third-party smart devices once you’ve installed the kit.

Home HQ is currently only available to Victorian customers for $199, although Origin has stated that it will “announce details of product availability in other states and territories in 2018”.

• The best smart home devices 2017

In September of 2016, South Australia experienced a number of rolling blackouts, resulting in a catastrophic power outage that left the entire state shrouded in darkness, costing businesses AU$367 million in the process.  

Some blamed the sudden and unexpected closure of the state's coal-fired power station in Port Augusta for putting extra strain on power systems, while reports also placed the onus on bad wind farm settings.

Elon Musk, CEO of the automaker and energy storage company Tesla, Inc, took notice of South Australia's energy troubles, and in March of this year issued a tweet promising to solve the problem with the installation of a new power system within "100 days from contract signature or it is free."

Now, Tesla has officially announced that it will be teaming up with the South Australian Government and the French energy company Neoen to install the world's largest sustainable energy system. 

You've got the power

"This week, through a competitive bidding process, Tesla was selected to provide a 100 MW/129 MWh Powerpack system to be paired with global renewable energy provider Neoen’s Hornsdale Wind Farm near Jamestown, South Australia," said the official statement on the deal.

"Upon completion by December 2017, this system will be the largest lithium-ion battery storage project in the world and will provide enough power for more than 30,000 homes, approximately equal to the amount of homes that lost power during the blackout period."

The billionaire magnate took to Twitter to announce that "this will be the highest power battery system in the world by a factor of 3."

The state's premier, Jay Weatherill, confirmed the deal, stating that he's "thrilled with the selection of Neoen and Tesla, whose experience and world leadership in energy security and renewables will help South Australia take charge of its energy future.”

• Check out Tesla's recent solar roof tiles and home battery packs

Tesla is a powerhouse in the modern tech world, and for good reason. The company's push for electric cars has captivated consumers, investors and industry observers, and the result is that Tesla is now the most valuable American car company. CEO Elon Musk has even set his sights on one day overtaking Apple in terms of company worth.

More recently, Tesla's focus has broadened, and it's made a different kind of push, one that aims to capture energy from the sun and use it to power people's homes.

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The move makes sense. Tesla isn't just a car manufacturer. Rather, it's a multi-pronged company looking to achieve unseen heights in renewable energy. Tesla wants to radically transform how we access and use energy in our everyday lives, and to that end it's spearheading two different products: solar panels and solar roof tiles, also known as the Tesla Solar Roof. 

Tesla's solar products are remarkably different than what we're used to seeing. Not only are the designs sleeker than traditional solar panels, but Tesla claims they are also cheaper, and that's before the savings you can expect on your power bill.

There are, of course, plenty of questions. How does Tesla plan to implement this new wave of solar power products? Is its technology really cheaper and more effective than traditional solar panels? And can Tesla pull off completely transforming home energy consumption, forever?

Tesla and solar energy: a brief history

Tesla's mission in solar and beyond is clear: the company wants to re-imagine how we consume energy. You might not know, however, that this plan actually isn't new. 

In the 'Secret Tesla Motors Plan (just between you and me),' a blog post written in 2006, Musk described his grand vision to transform Tesla into more than a car company.

"...the overarching purpose of Tesla Motors (and the reason I am funding the company) is to help expedite the move from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy towards a solar electric economy, which I believe to be the primary, but not exclusive, sustainable solution," wrote Musk.

Tesla started laying the groundwork for that transformation long before it announced a single solar panel. Critical to using green energy is the ability to store it, and Tesla came up with a way to do just that in the Powerwall. First announced in 2015, the Tesla Powerwall serves as a battery to store energy captured by solar panels and tiles. 

The Powerwall stores energy collected from a solar roof or tiles, or even from the electric grid. The stored energy can be used to power a home when there's no sunlight, or when the cost of electricity is higher, such as during the early evening hours. 

While the original Powerwall came at a cost of $3,000 or more, the new and improved Powerwall 2 starts at $5,500, largely because it includes a built-in power inverter. 

This means the unit will convert captured energy from the sun into energy that can actually be used in your home. Previously, you had to buy an inverter separately. 

With its Powerwall in place, in August 2016 Tesla took an even bigger step in becoming a solar power powerhouse when it purchased SolarCity for $2.6 billion. Founded by Elon Musk's cousin, Lyndon Rive, SolarCity specializes in the installation and development of solar panels. The SolarCity acquisition was a huge deal for Tesla; with SolarCity under its wing, Tesla can deploy full solar systems, complete with solar roofs, batteries, and so on.

Catching rays

Part of the appeal of Tesla's solar solutions are how aesthetically appealing they are thanks to sleek and modern designs that blend seamlessly with homes.  Tesla proved energy efficiency doesn't have to come at the cost of curb appeal with its Model S and Model X vehicles, and it's doing so again with solar power.

It's important to reiterate that Tesla has two solar products right now: more traditional solar panels and the Solar Roof, which looks like standard (yet beautiful) roof shingles, but serve as both roofing and solar panels. 

But looks will only take you so far, and Tesla has made its solar solutions functional, too. 

The technology used in its tiles is a new form of solar tech, and thus a bit of a change for Tesla. 

When Tesla first launched the Model S, it did so using a slew of existing technologies and battery cells built by Panasonic. With its solar tiles, Tesla has tapped a new technology built by Silevo, a company that was acquired by SolarCity for $200 million in 2014. That technology, however, is still somewhat new, and it's unproven in large-scale manufacturing, according to The Buffalo News. So, while the technology works in the lab, it's still unclear if it can be as efficient on a larger scale.

The tiles essentially incorporate different layers —  a layer of glass on the top, then layers of various films, then solar cells, which convert light into electricity. Silevo technology uses what's called a "heterojunction cell," and while the details get technical, the point is this: Silevo tech could offer an efficiency of up to 22%, which is greater than averages of between 10% and 15% that more traditional panels achieve.

There are still a few things that are a unclear about Tesla's tiles at this point, however. Tesla is expected to use both Silevo and Panasonic technology in its solar products, but these will need to prove they can work considering Silevo is still considered somewhat experimental. 

It also appears as though Tesla has taken a step back from Silevo because of its partnership with Panasonic, but that doesn't mean it's ditching the tech altogether. Instead, it's likely the technology just needs some more development to be effective on a mass scale.

Meanwhile, Tesla's solar panels, announced in April 2017, are different than the solar tiles. They look more like traditional panels, albeit sleeker. This is thanks to a much lower profile than other solar panel offerings.

According to Tesla, the panels "exceed industry standards for durability and lifespan." The panels aren't actually built by Tesla, but rather by Panasonic, which are then re-sold by Tesla. These don't use the Silevo technology found in Tesla's tiles. 

'Plug it in and use it'

In addition to a pleasing design, experts argue the intelligence of Tesla's software combined with its Powerwall home batteries will be the real draw to home owners. 

Tesla has revealed little about the software behind Powerwall, but on the consumer level it can monitor energy usage in real-time and features artificial intelligence that allows it to automatically adjust its settings according to your usage needs and daily routine. While you don't necessarily need a Powerwall, it helps Tesla solar users get the most out of their panels or tiles. 

"Tesla is using existing off-the-shelf battery technology [lithium ion] but bundles its very tech-smart information systems design to make storage just as easy as solar," Daniel Kammen, Professor of Energy at the University of California, Berkeley, tells TechRadar. In other words, solar energy is already easy, and Tesla makes storing it just as simple. 

"Plug it in and use it," Kammen said.

This end-to-end package isn't something other solar companies seem to have mastered: they don't use solar to its full potential, and all the energy captured during the day can't be used at night without a decent battery. With Powerwall, Tesla is delivering a holistic solution to consumers. 

Real solar savings?

While solar energy in general saves money on electric bills, it's still expensive to install, so you may not feel like you've saved money for quite some time if you go Tesla's route. Still, the company argues that eventually you will see worthwhile savings on energy use. 

According to Tesla, the real savings are to be found in its Solar Roof. And we’re not just talking the cost of the tiles compared to other solar products: Musk said during an earnings call in November that installing its roof is cheaper than installing standard roof tiles. And that's before the money you save from the energy it generates.

"Electricity," Musk said, "is just a bonus."

But is this claim of cheaper costs true? Well, it's complicated. According to Musk, the solar tiles are cheaper than the cost of concrete or ceramic roof tiles. Those, however, are among the more expensive roof tiles out there, running between $400 and $2,000 per 100 square feet, according to The Motley Fool.  

So while Tesla's roofing may end up being cheaper than some traditional materials, it will only be cheaper than the more expensive traditional materials.

Tesla unveiled pricing for its Solar Roof earlier this week, so we can helpfully run the numbers. On average, a Solar Roof will cost $21.85 per square foot for a 3,000-square-foot roof, although that pricing depends on factors like location and the ratio of solar to non-solar tiles you purchase. 

Because pricing varies home-to-home, Tesla launched an online calculator to figure out price estimates. 

For this story, we plugged in a 3,000-foot-square roof in Sunnyvale, California, and received a roof installation estimate of $79,500, plus $7,000 for the Tesla Powerwall. Undoubtedly that's a lot of money, but for the materials used and the type of roof you're getting, it's actually around the same price as a non-solar roof. 

According to Consumer Reports, a traditional Slate Tile roof would cost around $98,500 to install on a 3,000-foot-square roof, making it more expensive than the $79,500 Textured or Smooth Glass roof we calculated for our fictional Sunnyvale home. 

What's more, you start saving after the initial install. In California, you would get a $21,000 tax credit for installing such a roof, and Tesla says the roof would generate $113,900 of energy over the next 30 years. At the end of the 30 years, you will have paid off your roof, and generated an extra $48,400 worth of energy. In the long run, your solar roof would cost zero dollars, and you could even make money from it by selling the extra energy.

An important part of Tesla's equation is the ratio of solar tiles to non-solar tiles. Tesla's roofing is actually built from a combination of solar and non-solar tiles, and you can adjust the ratio you want installed. Using fewer solar tiles and more non-solar tiles will result in a cheaper installation cost, but less energy generated.

Tesla's solar tiles are, at least on paper, worth it the investment, even if you weren't thinking of getting a more expensive slate glass roof. Traditional roofing simply can't generate money, and will only cost you in repairs and replacements. Even cheaper asphalt tile roofing, which costs around $20,000 to install on a 3,000-foot-square roof, will cost you more money over time.

And what about the more traditional Panasonic-made solar panels Tesla recently unveiled? Are they more affordable and cost effective than other panels? Unfortunately, we can’t know yet as Tesla hasn't announced pricing for its panels. 

We can do a bit of sleuthing, however. Solar Power Authority, which offers quotes for panels, says the average cost of solar panels is around $5-$6 per watt including installation. That puts a 5kW system between $25,000 and $30,000. 

Tesla’s Panasonic modules each offer 325 watts, so each module should sit between $1,625 and $1,950. They likely won’t be sold by individual modules, but any less than that would be considered a good price to pay.

Tesla solar takes flight

Tesla is still working on its solar products, and in fact only two of its four solar tile options are available this year, with the others arriving in 2018. The two up for pre-order now are Textured Glass and Smooth Glass, and next year will see Slate Glass and Tuscan Glass.

Tesla's venture into solar may still be in the early stages, but already it's poised to be an influential player in the renewable energy world, helped by unique products, a respected business model and name recognition. 

"Tesla has both a fantastic technology solution that is available right now, and a great brand and market research," said UC Berkeley's Kammen. "This is a powerful combination." 

The big question now is whether home owners actually buy a Tesla Solar Roof or panels. Residential solar is on the rise in the US, but while 2016 was the market's biggest year to date, the number of residential solar installations in the country still only totals somewhere above one million, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. 

The climb to widespread residential solar adoption is steep, but with Tesla joining the fray, more homeowners may now consider switching to solar, whether for the installation price, long-term savings, to be an early adopter, or all of the above. 

What is clear is Tesla is serious about solar, and we expect to learn about improvements in the technology, cheaper pricing and even more energy products in the months and years to come. 

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Pre-orders have opened for Tesla's Solar Roof, giving homeowners a chance to put money down to replace their roof with high-tech tiles that will also help power their abode.

Since the cost of swapping in Tesla's sun-sapping equivalent is tricky to budget (considering there's no "one size fits all" for roofs), Tesla has installed a handy calculator that churns out a relative figure for how much it could cost to get your very own. It will also tell you how much you'll potentially save.

The calculator just needs an address, your home's square footage, and number of stories to make an estimate on how much of its solar roofing you'll need and how effective it will be at collecting sun rays, thanks to Google's Project Sunroof 3D-mapping technology, according to TechCrunch.

From there, the estimate weighs the cost of building an actual Solar Roof and installing one or more optional Powerwall batteries against possible savings from tax credits and saved energy over the course of 30 years. This gives users a general idea how worthwhile the investment might be.

Here's what a sample calculation looks like:

The calculator also includes a slider that adjusts how much of the roof you'd like made of Tesla's solar tiles, since some portions with lots of shade or fixtures like chimneys can't take advantage of the technology.

Obviously, a Tesla Solar Roof isn't exactly cheap, but the main savings you're supposed to get from one are to be seen in your energy bill over several decades.

Shoppers can choose between one of two tiling styles  — textured or smooth  — which are designed to blend in with 'normal' roofs. These are seemingly quite durable, and two more styles  — Tuscan and slate — are expected to debut in 2018.

For those who've crunched the numbers and are ready to go solar, a $1,000 deposit can be made to secure an order on Tesla's website. Should you change your mind, Tesla says the deposit is fully refundable until you make either a purchase or an installation agreement.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced on Twitter his company's Solar Roof can be ordered "for almost any country" and that the high-tech roofing solution will be deployed this year in the US and overseas next year.

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Unlimited clean energy is a world-changing prospect. It's hard to overstate how much the development of a technology that provides power for free would change our civilisation, in most regards for the better. That's why so much money is being spent on research into nuclear fusion and related technologies.

Now, however, a team of physicists and chemists from the University of Bristol have unveiled a 'nuclear battery' that they claim could offer a long-term supply of energy with zero emissions for small, low-power devices. Best of all, it could solve our nuclear waste problem along the way.

Their prototype battery involves a man-made diamond that generates a small electric current when placed in a radioactive field. "There are no moving parts involved, no emissions generated and no maintenance required, just direct electricity generation," said Tom Scott from the University's Interface Analysis Centre. 

By encapsulating radioactive material inside diamonds, we turn a long-term problem of nuclear waste into a nuclear-powered battery and a long-term supply of clean energy."

How it works

 The prototype uses an isotope called nickel-63 as the radiation source, but the team believes that they could significantly improve the efficiency of the device by using carbon-14 - a version of carbon that's generated in the graphite blocks that slow nuclear reactions in power plants. 

"Carbon-14 was chosen as a source material because it emits a short-range radiation, which is quickly absorbed by any solid material," said Neil Fox from the university's school of chemistry. "This would make it dangerous to ingest or touch with your naked skin, but safely held within diamond, no short-range radiation can escape. In fact, diamond is the hardest substance known to man, there is literally nothing we could use that could offer more protection."

The UK currently has about 95,000 tonnes of graphite blocks in storage without a long-term plan for disposing of them. The Bristol researchers say that by extracting the carbon-14 from them, their radioactivity would decrease - making them easier and cheaper to store.

Long life

 Using carbon-14, the team says that a nuclear battery would take 5,730 years to discharge by half. That's about the same amount of time that human civilisation has existed for.

Scott added: "We envision these batteries to be used in situations where it is not feasible to charge or replace conventional batteries. Obvious applications would be in low-power electrical devices where long life of the energy source is needed, such as pacemakers, satellites, high-altitude drones or even spacecraft."

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Not long after Tesla shareholders approved the company’s acquisition of renewable energy firm SolarCity, Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, proclaimed that Tesla’s new solar roof product will cost less to manufacture and install than a regular roof. And that’s including labor costs.

This saving doesn’t even take into account the saved energy costs – “electricity”, he said, “is just a bonus.”

According to Bloomberg, Musk said “the basic proposition will be: Would you like a roof that looks better than a normal roof, lasts twice as long, costs less and—by the way—generates electricity?”

Affordable renewability

It should be noted, the roof shingles themselves are still high-end products and expensive to produce – in fact, the shingles designed to mimic terracotta and slate could cost up to 20 times more than regular asphalt shingles.

The majority of the cost savings Musk reports will actually come from shipping the products rather than manufacturing them. Shipping costs for traditional roofing materials are high because they’re fragile, heavy, and prone to breakage. Tesla’s tempered-glass tiles will have the advantage of weighing much less than these traditional materials and being much easier to ship.

Last month Musk showed off four homes outfitted with the surprisingly good-looking textured glass solar tiles, and if they do turn out to be as affordable as Musk claims this could transform the solar power market. A roof that won't cost you any more to install but could save you money in the long run? Musk said it himself: “Why would you get anything else?” 

• Tesla unveils new solar roof tiles and home battery packs

When he's not trying to advance self-driving car technology or explore space, Elon Musk likes to spend time working on progressing renewable energy, and he's been showing off two new products for the home in Los Angeles.

The first is made by SolarCity, one of many firms Musk has an interest in (he's currently trying to take it over with Tesla): solar roof panels that look like normal slates, are cheap to install and can power your home gadgets without costing the Earth.

Musk's announcements were light on details (including costs and a launch date) but apparently a roof kitted out with these new tiles (of which there are several types) would save you money when compared with fitting a normal roof and having to pay for electricity separately. 

Power for the people

During the show, which you can see in full on Vimeo, we also got a look at Tesla's new Powerpack 2 battery for the home. These fridge-sized packs are designed to store all that power coming from the Sun and keep it available through the night and cloudy days.

Each Powerwall 2 features two 14 kWh lithium-ion battery packs (double the capacity of the previous version) and is capable of holding enough electricity to power a standard four-bedroom house for an entire day. There's now a built-in inverter too for converting sunlight into electricity.

The media event in California was as much about trying to sell the merger of Tesla and SolarCity as announcing new products but these tiles and batteries show the current state of progress in shifting the world to renewable energy, before it's too late to put the brakes on climate change. 

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With skin-searing sun and 1.5 million homes already hooked up to solar power, Australia is a perfect candidate for Tesla Energy's Powerwall. And now pre-orders for the device have finally opened.

Starting from today, anyone looking to trim their power bill can buy the sleek wall-mounted battery from Natural Solar or Origin Energy, but will have to wait until next year for delivery and installation.

Natural Solar has opened pre-orders for the 5kWp Powerwall to customers in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide, but says the rest of Australia will follow in a nationwide rollout.

And after all, you're my Powerwall

Origin is offering the Powerwall as both a stand alone unit ready to be integrated into existing solar systems, or as part of a package. These packages include Trina solar panels and a Solar Edge inverter, both of which have been approved by Tesla Energy to pair with the Powerwall.

According to Fairfax Media, Origin's packages will start from $16,500.

Natural Solar just pips Origin at the post in terms of installation, promising to get Powerwalls rolling out by January, while Origin customers will have to wait until February for installations to commence.

Electric dreams: There's over 500 Teslas on Australian roads

Though the company has been criticised for its large carbon footprint in the past, Apple has now taken a huge step towards a future powered entirely by clean energy with the announcement that its supply chain in China is now 100% carbon neutral.

Apple’s plan comes in the form of two initiatives – one is aimed at expanding its solar power investment throughout the northern, eastern and southern regions of China, while the other is aimed specifically at the company’s Chinese offices and stores.

The expansion of clean energy throughout Apple’s supply chain is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide in China by roughly 20 million metric tonnes by the year 2020.

Cooking up some green energy

In its press release on the news, Apple CEO Tim Cook stated that "the transition to a new green economy requires innovation, ambition and purpose,” and that the people at Apple “believe passionately in leaving the world better than we found it and hope that many other suppliers, partners and other companies join us in this important effort."

Apple began implementing its 40-megawatt solar projects back in April this year, and has now installed solar panels in the Sichuan Province which have effectively reduced the company’s carbon footprint to zero across its 19 corporate offices and its 24 retail stores in the country.

Next, the Cupertino company will shift its attention to its manufacturing partners (which are mostly situated in China) – Apple claims that 72% of the company’s carbon emissions come from this area of its business.

To remedy this, Apple plans to team up with its suppliers, which include the Taiwanese electronics manufacturing company Foxconn, to install more than 2 gigawatts of clean energy over the next few years.

• Butterflies hold the secret for revolutionising solar energy

A MIT startup has come up with a novel way of tweaking solar cells to remain transparent while still gathering usable energy from the Sun.

A transparent solar cell is difficult to build - solar cells traditionally capture energy by absorbing sunlight and converting it into electricity. A transparent cell, by definition, must allow sunlight through instead so it can reach your eye - that's why previous attempts at making see-through solar panels have only partially been transparent.

Ubiquitous Energy has been wrestling for years with that problem, but now has come up with a promising breakthrough. Instead of trying to make a transparent cell, they've built instead what they call a "transparent luminescent solar concentrator".

Here's how it works. The cell is made of plastic, and embedded in that plastic are chemicals that absorb non-visible wavelengths of light (infrared and ultraviolet). As they absorb them, they glow in another non-visible infrared wavelength, and that glow is guided to the edge of the plastic. There, thin strips of conventional photovoltaic cells absorb it and convert it to electricity.

Right now efficiency is low - only about one percent. But the researchers believe that an efficiency of ten percent is possible by the time the technology makes it to production. That's still half the effectiveness of a traditional solar cell, but if every window in a house or office block was converted then it could add up to a reasonable figure.

"It opens a lot of area to deploy solar energy in a non-intrusive way," Lunt said in an interview with Michigan State's Today blog. "It can be used on tall buildings with lots of windows or any kind of mobile device that demands high aesthetic quality like a phone or e-reader. Ultimately we want to make solar harvesting surfaces that you do not even know are there."

The team's research was published in Advanced Optical Materials (via ExtremeTech).

Mobile computing promises the world: web access, photos, music and maps, everywhere you go. And it can really deliver - for a while. But poor battery life means you'll probably soon run into problems, with some devices leaving you staring at a useless blank screen well before the end of the day.

There are some steps you can take to keep your system running longer, of course. The display is a major mobile phone energy hog, so reducing its brightness and timeout (the time a phone waits for input before turning the screen off) can make a significant difference.

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Turning off GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when you don't need them also helps. This doesn't always have to be as absolute as it sounds. On the iPhone, for instance, you can disable Location Services on an app-by-app basis (Settings > Privacy > Location Services). On the software side, uninstalling apps you don't use will stop them draining your battery.

There are also tools you can use to extend your battery life. JuiceDefender, for instance, is an excellent Android app which automatically optimises power use.

All of these steps can bring minor improvements but none can make the fundamental difference we need. And you might be left wondering why battery life is still so poor, and what's being done to improve the situation.

Feature overload

Perhaps the main problem with battery life over the years is it really doesn't seem to have changed that much.

Take the iPhone, for example. The original device had a claimed talk time of 8 hours; the iPhone 5 is, well, the same. Internet use has nudged up from 6 hours to 8, and claimed standby time has actually dropped (225 hours vs 250).

There are very good reasons for this, though, and the main one is that you're now getting much more for your money.

A modern iPhone has gained 3G support, a vastly better screen (480 x 320 vs 1136 x 640), GPS, and the excellent iSight camera (8 megapixel vs 2). On top of that, there's the ability to run multiple apps in the background, each of which could drain your power further at any time. The fact that the latest iPhones can power all these extra functions while also fractionally extending overall battery life is a success story, not a failure.

This doesn't mean that the existing situation is good enough, of course. When, even now, many devices struggle to run for a full day without a recharge, then it's clear we need something better. Much better. And there are some promising technologies being developed right now which could point us in the right direction.

Extending Lithium-Ion

Today's lithium-ion batteries are straightforward and safe (well, mostly), but also have their limitations. In particular, the graphite anode they generally use has to be fairly large to store a reasonable amount of power, and so there's a great deal of research going on to find a less bulky replacement material.

Silicon anodes, for instance, could help increase battery capacity by up to 10 times. But the big problem is that a simple flat layer of silicon absorbs so many ions that it actually grows significantly during charging, then shrinks during discharge, creating stresses which mean it destroys itself very quickly.

Recent research at the University of Maryland, however, found that growing tiny silicon beads on a carbon nanotube allowed them to expand during charging "like flexible balloons", without cracking. UMD Professor YuHuang Wang told us: "I believe that our finding is very significant. The Si bead on CNT structure is a breakthrough."

There is still much to do - the cathode and electrolyte also need to be able to handle this extra charge - but if Wang is right then this could help to deliver vastly improved power density, as well as batteries which can survive perhaps five times as many charge/ discharge cycles as they do today.

Others are working on lithium-sulphur, lithium-seawater, even lithium-air projects, each of which has their own possible advantages. PolyPlus seawater technology could deliver four times the battery life of li-ion, for instance, while "air-cathode" research (including IBM's Battery 500) suggests the batteries wouldn't only outperform li-ion, they'd be so lightweight that they could allow electric cars to finally have the range of their petrol-based cousins.

Next generation

While some think simply tweaking lithium-ion is the way to go, others are working on rather more revolutionary ideas.

Perhaps one of the most promising areas of battery research is based around graphene. A single layer of carbon, the material can vastly outperform existing technologies, recharges in a few minutes, and is even flexible, perfect for wearable devices.

Science fiction? Not at all. The UK government has allocated £21.5 million to develop commercial applications for the material, and companies like Vorbeck Materials are working on producing graphene batteries right now.

Elsewhere, Harvard Professor Jennifer Lewis has demonstrated the use of 3D printing to build an integrated stack of electrodes, which could allow batteries to be reduced to the size of a grain of sand.

At the moment, the main benefit is the reduction in weight, Lewis told us: "We are working on the next generation design with improved electrode compositions to further enhance their performance. We certainly hope that they will outperform regular Li ion batteries, but this has yet to be demonstrated."

Another new idea goes a step further, rethinking battery technology at a much lower level. New microbatteries developed at the University of Illinois integrate their anodes and cathodes at the microstructure level, allowing recharge times to be 1,000 times faster, and batteries to be one thirtieth of their current size.

"It's a new enabling technology," said James Pikul, first author of the paper: "It's not a progressive improvement over previous technologies; it breaks the normal paradigms of energy sources. It's allowing us to do different, new things."

Power up

The future of batteries has plenty of promise, then - but mobile users need more power right now. The quickest workaround seems to be finding new, hassle-free ways of recharging. And they don't get much more convenient than Wysips Crystal, the first solar recharging technology you might actually want to use.

The system uses an ultra-thin film which can be placed behind your device screen. It's up to 90 per cent transparent, so you won't even know it's there, yet is still enough to generate a useful recharge level from any source of light.

What can you expect? The company told us: "Right now the system generates 2.5 mW/cm2 in direct sunlight, which should mean an extra 2 to 4 minutes talk time for every 10 minutes of exposure."

Only really useful in an emergency, then, but there's more. The company aims to double this performance by the end of 2014; it's also due very soon, and at a price that everyone can afford. The company explained: "Wysips Crystal adds just $2.30 to a mobile phone's manufacturing costs, and the first mobiles equipped with the technology will be on the market in early 2014."

Here in the UK, of course, direct sunlight can sometimes be hard to find, but fortunately there's another long-awaited technology which is coming very soon: wireless recharging. It's already available at a few places in the US (Madison Square Garden has 600 wireless charging spots), for instance. And the idea could be about to go very mainstream indeed, with Starbucks apparently due to introduce the technology soon, and McDonald's Europe already beginning trials.

The battery world may move very slowly, then, but finally it's beginning to change, and we should see the emergence of real, meaningful improvements in current technology as soon as next year.

• For even more on how wireless charging will change our world, read our in-depth feature

Like the idea of solar panels but don't want your house to look like a power station?

New building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) panels can add solar power to roofs and even windows.

BIPV adds photovoltaic technology to normal building materials, such as roof files and sun shades.

Direct your hoof to the sunny side of the roof

Most BIPV panels are made from traditional crystalline silicon cells but next generation systems, such as thin film panels (which should cut weight and boost efficiency) and even third generation organic polymer cells (giving the thinnest, lightest panels) are coming soon.

Solar panels can also now be built in to normal windows. Konarka Technologies has developed a prototype semitransparent coating of organic solar film to turn window glass into a power generator, and that still allows around 80 per cent of light to go through.

Research firm Frost & Sullivan predict the market for BIPV systems will grow by 18 per cent each year for the next five years, driven by government initiatives in Europe, Japan and the USA.

Via CEN.

Today is 'national working from home day' celebrating the merits of using the latest internet and communications technologies to improve productivity and, as such, designer Owen Song has imagined the ideal WFH-gadget – the Wi-Fi enabled solar-powered park bench!

Of course, for us Brits this would only really work on the one out of ten days in the summer months when it was actually warm and dry enough to venture outside.

And then most of us would probably moan about the heat or the sun's rays spoiling the view of our laptop screen, so Mr Song might want to think about fitting an overhead sun visor and some air-conditioning into his wizard new park bench design.

Always-on Wi-Fi bench

You can see more of Owen Song's Solar Inside concept bench right here which features a number of solar panels fitted into the seating surface.

Surely, while TechRadar is no expert on the very latest developments in solar panelling, these should have been located elsewhere? (Perhaps somewhere where they would not be covered up by those lazy freelancers/ working-at-home-type's bottoms...)

Apparently though, an always topped-up battery hidden inside the bench would ensure that the Wi-Fi was always-on, no matter how dark it was. Or how many bottoms were obscuring the solar panels...

So, aside from our minor gripes though, we genuinely think it's a good idea. Although we cannot imagine Britain's cash-strapped local councils putting Wi-Fi enabled solar powered benches up high on their priority lists for park renovations right now!

For more on national working from home day, check out the website.

The next generation of solar panels could be made using cheap, abundant materials like fool's gold (iron pyrite) instead of costly silicon or complicated thin films.

A study by the University of California, Berkeley, evaluated 23 promising semiconducting materials and discovered that 12 are abundant enough to meet or even exceed annual worldwide energy demand.

Of those twelve, nine offer significant savings compared with traditional crystalline silicon, the most widely used photovoltaic material in mass production today.

Scaling up solar power

"We started looking at new materials because people often assume solar will be the dominant energy source of the future," said Cyrus Wadia, a post-doctoral researcher who spearheaded the research. "But when considering the practicalities of a solar-dominated energy system, we must turn our attention back to basic science research if we are to solve the problem."

The most popular solar materials in use today are silicon and thin films made of cadmium telluride and copper indium gallium selenide.

Silicon is expensive to process and mass produce and has become increasingly difficult to mine enough of to meet ever-growing consumer demand. Thin films, while cheaper and easier than silicon to mass produce, would rapidly deplete our natural resources if these technologies were scaled up.

The team showed that iron pyrite is several orders of magnitude better for making solar cells than any alternative in terms of both cost and abundance, although copper sulfide and copper oxide are also possibilities.

Intel plans to trade one type of silicon product for another when it breaks ground on a new solar cell manufacturing plant later this year.

Based in Oregon, the new company, SpectraWatt plans to manufacture 60 megawatts worth of cells, which is almost ten times the largest wind turbine in the world (which is owned by the Queen of England, by the way.)

One of the major problems blocking solar cell evolution is efficiency - that is, converting sunlight into a decent amount of energy.

But the entrance of a company of Intel's size into the market signals that this method of electricity production might be ready for the big time.

Solar cells - like computer chips

Apparently, Intel has already got a number of customers lined up, and has secured a supply of polysilicon to make the things, which is obviously important as there is something of a shortage worldwide.

Andrew Wilson, previously GM of Intel's New Business Initiatives group, will become chief executive of the new company.

"The solar industry is akin to where the microprocessor industry was in the late 1970s. There is a lot to be figured out and improved," he said recently.

He also said that Intel would be using a lot of the know-how it has gained working with silicon over the years to produce the cells, although the actual product will be vastly different.

So, all you waiting for a self-powering processor might have to wait for a few more years then.

The traditional flat solar panel looks like becoming a thing of the past now that a Japanese company has developed a spherical equivalent that is both more efficient and far cheaper to make.

The Sphelar, which is the brainchild of Kyoto-based Kyosemi, is a perfectly round solar cell that can be made as small as 1mm in diameter. In combination, hundreds or thousands of the devices can be used to form a solar panel of any shape.

Sunshine all the time

While it may not seem like a major difference, the practical effect of making a non-flat solar panel is that it doesn't have to precisely face the sun to capture energy. In fact, Sphelar cells can generate electricity from both direct and indirect sunshine; effectively soaking up available light whatever direction it comes from.

Construction methods are also efficient - less silicon is needed to make a Sphelar than a conventional solar cell as the spheres are crystallised out of molten silicon by gravity during a free fall from 14m. Standard cell manufacturing results in half as much silicon being wasted as is actually used.

Perhaps the most flexible aspect of the new cells is their ability to be moulded into any shape needed and placed in any location. Possibilities include solar panels in awkward places or even windows that generate electricity through Sphelar cells embedded in the glass.