In the gloomiest corners of a home, an artificial light will often not provide adequate brightness. A new device, however, is aimed at brightening up a room with the brightest light of them all: the sun. Lucy is a solar-powered robotic mirror that reflects natural light into your home.
Such is peoples' preference for natural light over artificial light, all sorts of creative means of getting it into buildings have been dreamt up. The University of Cincinnati's SmartLight system, for example, uses electrofluidic cells to redirect natural light into windowless rooms. Lucy, however, uses a much simpler approach.
Users first choose somewhere to put Lucy, that has line-of-sight to both the sun during the day and the room or space that they'd like illuminated. They then indicate the place that they want illuminated. Once set up, Lucy tracks the movement of the sun automatically, illuminating the user's chosen space with up to 7,000 lumens of natural light throughout the day.
According to Solenica, the company behind Lucy, a single installation of the device can reduce a user's carbon footprint by up to one ton (0.9 tonne) per year. It is solar-powered, so requires no mains electricity and has no trailing wires. The mechanism is all contained within a sphere, which makes for a compelling piece of design and offers it protection.
At the time of writing, Lucy is available to pre-order from US$150. A similar device, the Sunflower heliostat, tracks the sun to reflect sunlight from outdoors into a house's window.
The video below provides an introduction to the Lucy.
Source: Solenica