A solar-powered Wii? Yes, a solar-powered Wii! [update 1]

by David Hinkle { Mar 20th 2007 at 4:15PM }

Seriously, we want you to let go of your mouse, take your other hand out of the box of Cheez-Its (we assume you browse the net like we do) and give these fine gentlemen responsible for the above technological marvel a round of applause. These fine folk from Tom's Hardware Guide have managed to harness the power of the Sun (the bane of any good gamer's existence) and use it to power the Wii, a television and set of speakers.

With the TV and speakers requiring around 130 watts to operate and the Wii needing a smaller 40-45 watts, in direct sunlight, during a normal sunny day, they can get from 6 to 8 hours of game time out of this bad boy. That's more than enough time to throw down in some Wii Sports: Bowling or maybe get some people together in the parking lot outside of the Wendy's for some multiplayer WarioWare: Smooth Moves. So where do they take their new toy? Down to Venice Beach, of course!

Update: Comments are pointing out that the solar panel only contributed some of the juice needed to power the setup, but if you think about it, the thing actually is solar powered. Semantics aside, we apologize if we mislead you.

Tags: nintendo, nintendowii, solar, solarwii, wii

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Patrick @ Mar 20th 2007 4:48PM

No, a battery powered Wii, but close.

According to the article: "The solar panel only contributed a little more than 10 percent of the electricity needed to power the Wii and monitor".

Jackson Pritt @ Mar 20th 2007 4:53PM

LOLZ @ Patrick owning you guys.

I dig the hell out of the idea of a solar Wii, and I'd pay good money for a solar setup for my Wii that I could stick out on my balcony, but that's a pretty huge error in your article.

Tiem to be checking the source PLZ:
http://www.twitchguru.com/2007/03/19/inside_the_solar_powered_wii/

Patrick @ Mar 20th 2007 6:48PM

Sorry, I wasn't trying to prove you wrong, just thought I'd point out the facts in the article.

This is actually a great display of creativity. Someone at the big N is probably wishing they thought of this first. Imagine if they did a mall or Toy-R-Us tour with these.
Of course all the advertising in the world doesn't do squat if you can't manufacture your product quick enough.

The Wii is still the only console you can't easily find at popular online retail stores.

As it stands the Wii is the only new-gen console I own. I'm holding out for the first big new-gen MMORPG, then I'll decide.

Defferoo @ Mar 20th 2007 7:06PM

well... technically it's still solar powered. the solar panel still provides the energy used to charge the battery, so even that battery power is just a temporary storage for the energy before it is used by the Wii. It may not be running purely on sunlight(because the screens/speakers/wii take up too much energy for that size solar panel), but sunlight is still the original source of energy for the entire contraption.

SWORD_HAT @ Mar 20th 2007 10:26PM

YO, A SOLAR POWERED WII, NOW THAT IS JUST FUCKING TIGHT!

Paul @ Mar 20th 2007 10:53PM

now work on a Solar powered DS

JC Fletcher @ Mar 20th 2007 11:16PM

Boktai Wii CONFIRMED.

bobdole @ Mar 21st 2007 1:03AM

#4: name me one source of energy that doesn't originally come from the sun.

Patrick @ Mar 21st 2007 1:26AM

As much as I would like to agree with you #8, I wouldn't go asking a question like that.
The obvious answer would be most carbon based energies, (Coal, Oil, etc), but I'm sure you have some sort of "Well you needed years of heat to produce coal" or something like that)
Then there's wind and water energy, I suppose the wind and clouds are changed by the sun, so fair enough, you also need rain at some point for water energy to work (i guess) so I suppose you could barely tie in the Sun again.
What about nuclear? Does the sun have something to do with that? Maybe, I'm not too familiar with nuclear power.
So here's my answer: Gravitational Potential Energy
Its energy all right, and its completely independent of the sun. If you're not sure what GPE is, go ahead and jump off a building, and right before you 'land' ask yourself where all this energy came from. I'll give you a hint, its not the sun.

jadenguy @ Mar 22nd 2007 8:59AM

#8: geothermal. and nuclear.

Ben Meyer @ Mar 21st 2007 1:54PM

Hi WiiFanBoy,

I did the video and don't think it's cool you don't attribute it to Tom's Hardware or Twitchguru or provide a text link. We did the work. Bad form guys.

-Ben Meyer

David Hinkle @ Mar 21st 2007 2:36PM

Ben,

If you look at the post, the link in the graphic, as well as the "Read" link in the lower left-hand corner point back to Tom's Hardware. We did the proper thing link-wise and would never try and steal content.

If you need anything else cleared up, feel free to email me: david [at] nintendowiifanboy [dot] com.