Redesigning Computing for Openness—the Ethics of Consuming Devices
Author: Brian Sutherland, University of Toronto
Introduction
Why does the logic of computing involve repeated purchase and consumption of “molded plastic epics” (Gabrys, 2011)? Thinking back on calculation devices and the ethical problem of repeated consumption, a simple solar calculator stands out for its durability. The reason may be sustainability design: early calculators, like more recent Citizen Eco-Drive watches utilize a solar energy harvesting strategy that doesn’t use batteries, consequently they are very low maintenance, long lasting, and tend to not wear out. As there are very few solar powered electronics devices in the market that reflect emerging green narratives of degrowth, reuse and upcycling, this exhibit discusses the history of these rare devices and reinterprets their energy experience design strategies toward modern consumer electronics, demonstrating new prototype devices that feature broad affordability, openness and more ethical consumption.
Questionable ethics? Casio rolls back sustainability in a calculator design. The newer, “two-way power” version doesn’t work under the same illumination without a battery.
Critical Design
Critical design (Dunne, 1999) involves consideration of social and ethical issues, the nature of materials, the role and assumptions of designers and users, where a design is often a congealed artifact of a critical perspective, even as it (may) exist as a technological agent in the world. Media archaeology of electronics often reveals design vignette alternatives to modern logics of convenience repurchasing consistent with older repairing, upgrading, or trading, low cost practices that support degrowth and ethical consumption. Critical making (Ratto, 2019) is a chance to foreground social issues in considering design scholarship.
Selected Vignettes in Energy Harvesting Design History
In this design exhibit, I have collected about a hundred electronics devices 1954- present that function in an unusual way: they absorb the energy for their operation from their surroundings using photovoltaics, a strategy which has recently garnered the expression “energy harvesting” but is also known as energy scavenging or net-zero (although this latter term is often applied to energy offsets). The online Museum of Solar Energy presents a pictorial survey of some of the history of these devices. With some few exceptions, solar powered consumer products were short lived, and networks of relations for conventional electronics have instead stabilized around the use of batteries, dependency on centralized electricity, matched transformer voltages, networking services, and a limited ability to repair devices, upcycle them or reuse them with the result that we have this “fast-cycling” consumption occurring.
Rare 1959 Hoffman Trans-Solar radio in holiday red with early unique tesselated solar cells and Conelrad emergency broadcast markings – featured in Popular Electronics
Contemporary Samsung Solar Phone, from 2011;
Howard Innis’s Empire and Communications for a suggestive backdrop
The collection of early devices, which is described in greater detail in my PhD dissertation Energy Harvesting Information Systems and Design in the Energy Transition, has revealed a number of sustainability characteristics which are desirable from the consumer’s point of view, but which manufacturers have designed out, for various reasons.
One 1963 Hoffman radio, the 709, for example, had the ability to trickle charge what we now consider to be single-use batteries. Given that batteries are presently consumed at the rate of 15 billion per year, this is a significant sustainability feature! Another is energy harvesting: solar watches that use storage capacitors instead of batteries. Storage capacitors can recharge 1,000,000 times without significantly degrading, more than the few thousand times afforded by the best rechargeable batteries that consume critical minerals. A further feature is repairability: universal open standards, the availability of parts for multiple years of a design, access to repair information and user-accessible repair spaces that make it easy to perform maintenance.
Citizen 1980s watch interior, showing the location of the storage capacitor
Speculative Electronics Designs for Openness and Sustainability
The response designs in this design exhibit reflect the above study of historical sustainability features, ones which would be necessary to reform the consumer electronics industry from ‘rapid cycling’ to a slower moving future involving degrowth.
The first such design is based on the public radio, whose blueprints, bill of materials, software, etc. designed by Zach Dunham and Spencer Wright and crowdfunded into being about 2015 are open source and online. It is a simple ultra low power FM radio designed to fit a mason jar. By replacing the batteries for an energy harvesting system consisting of parallel hybrid supercapacitors (2020), a schottky diode and an inexpensive solar cell, the radio will work for a week, similar to the AA batteries it normally uses, but with a charging system and permanent energy storage for multiple lifetimes of energy autarky. The mason jar of course, has been around since 1858, it is a singularly open design – no problem replacing parts!
The Public Rad.io redesigned with batteryless energy harvesting system
Could this small, lightweight, long-lasting, easily repaired entertainment system design be reproduced to larger devices? Yes: another speculative redesign involves a combination of a recycled 27” iMac aluminum foot, a 20W solar panel, six hybrid supercapacitors, and a cheap bluetooth receiver/amplifier. Aside from their durability and longevity, supercapacitors have the side-benefit of improving the audio performance of portable-power stereo systems.
12V, 20W solar panel, recycled computer stand and audio components > bluetooth stereo!
(video version of this graphic is available if the blog supports)
In addition to larger entertainment devices that reflect degrowth and low carbon, more complex ones have been powered by energy harvesting and storage, particularly computers and server networks, e.g. solar protocol. Is it, for example, possible to serve the entire Project Gutenberg collection of free eBooks from a tiny internet of things energy harvesting computer? Yes! [Sustainable Little Free eBook Library]
Raspberry Pi 4 and 27″ HP monitor powered by a solar panel and ultracapacitors
Similarly, a small workstation computer can be powered by solar-charged supercapacitors as in the case of this Raspberry Pi4. These speculative devices (and many more not shown here), illustrate that the project of redesigning electronics for openness involves using widely accessible swappable hardware (in the case of the Raspberry Pi, supported by a foundation), high energy efficiency hardware, sufficient computing power to do useful things, the ability to repair, swap, upgrade, and reuse parts, an advanced energy harvesting system aided by low power modes, checkpointing software for power interruptions and new forms of long lasting memory such as FRAM. Mainly, though I suggest: a durable energy system that does not suffer from “battery obsolescence”, the perceived or actual reduction in the useful life of an electronics device due to the deterioration or failure of energy storage.
References
Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2024, June 5). Critical Design FAQ. Dunne & Raby.
Gabrys, J. (2011). Digital Rubbish: A Natural History of Electronics. University of Michigan Press.
Ratto, M. (2019, April 9). Critical Making. Open Design Now.
Sutherland, Brian (Director). (2017, April 23). Sustainable Little Free eBook Library.
