Everything run by the sun is a tune (or something)

I know that this isn’t going to save the planet. I’ve been to Vegas. I’ve seen the vast quantities of waste and energy squandering that goes on daily, and though it hasn’t put me off sorting my recycling out at 11:30pm on a Sunday night so the bin men can collect it on Monday, seeing the orgy of consumption and waste that goes on in some places does make one wonder what the point is. HOWEVER, even if it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans, it still makes me smile – so I suppose I’d better tell you what it is.

In around 2015 or so I was having a shower, and thinking to myself “Why the hell aren’t I listening to music, or a podcast?”. It’s the perfect window of opportunity – but with waterproof headphones making it tricky to wash your earholes, the next best option is a speaker. Bathroom electrical rules being what they are mean that you can’t have a power socket to plug a speaker into – but battery-powered Bluetooth speakers are a thing now^[i] Now that we live in The Future ^[ii] Let’s leave my specific thoughts about Bluetooth as a technology to one side, for a moment. .

But, having moved into the category of adult who own a house with a bathroom that has an external-facing window^[iii] Impressed? , it crossed my mind that if I got my paws on a SOLAR PANEL with a USB connector on it, then I could buy the cheapest USB-chargeable bluetooth speaker I could find, and have myself a sustainable means of listening to tunes in the shower and NOT have to worry about how much battery was left!

So, thrillseekers, that’s EXACTLY what I did!

Now, if we’re being *totally* honest, this is actually the 2nd speaker/solar panel pair I bought – the first ones were substantially cheaper (and smaller), and crapped out in about 2 years^[iv] Of COURSE I took them to the e-waste recycling part of the tip – I’m not an Earth-terrorising monster. . So these ones are the replacements I bought in 2019^[v] Important plot point – if you’re going to emulate this piece of GENIUS, make sure that the first speaker you buy is a waterproof one. . But on the plus side, it’s now 2026 and these are going strong! Bit of rust around the eyelets, but that’s always gonna happen when you get old and spend your day lurking around a bathroom.

Any questions?