The past week has felt more like a London winter, than a Toronto one. It has been mild, rainy, and gray. So right now feels like an opportune time to write about this solar-powered light/art piece called Sunne. Created by Marjan van Aubel, the light has been designed to hang right in front of a window using two simple cables. There's no need for an external power source, because it has an integrated battery that harvests sun during the day. The light then automatically turns on at sunset, and has the ability to simulate some pretty stunning sun experiences.

Now, if you happen to live in a place with a roof that gets good sun exposure, I suppose you could just install a bunch of solar panels and use them to generate power for cool-looking things in your home. But if you don't have the ability to do that -- for instance, maybe you live in a multi-family building -- then this feels like a clever and extremely beautiful way to harvest some amount of sun. I'm sure that, eventually, we'll have building facades that can generate a meaningful amount of solar power, but until then, you've got devices like Sunne.

P.S. For what it's worth, I'll take cold, snowy and sunny, over mild, rainy and gray, any day of the week.

Image: Sunne

The past week has felt more like a London winter, than a Toronto one. It has been mild, rainy, and gray. So right now feels like an opportune time to write about this solar-powered light/art piece called Sunne. Created by Marjan van Aubel, the light has been designed to hang right in front of a window using two simple cables. There's no need for an external power source, because it has an integrated battery that harvests sun during the day. The light then automatically turns on at sunset, and has the ability to simulate some pretty stunning sun experiences.

Now, if you happen to live in a place with a roof that gets good sun exposure, I suppose you could just install a bunch of solar panels and use them to generate power for cool-looking things in your home. But if you don't have the ability to do that -- for instance, maybe you live in a multi-family building -- then this feels like a clever and extremely beautiful way to harvest some amount of sun. I'm sure that, eventually, we'll have building facades that can generate a meaningful amount of solar power, but until then, you've got devices like Sunne.

P.S. For what it's worth, I'll take cold, snowy and sunny, over mild, rainy and gray, any day of the week.

Image: Sunne