‘Solar-powered’ calculator with fake solar cell

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‘Solar-powered’ calculator with fake solar cell


Image by Dan Lockton
Needing a solar (photovoltaic) cell quickly for a project, I bought a cheap (£1) calculator with the solar cell clearly visible on the front.

When I took it apart, however, something was wrong: there were no wires leading fom the cell. Prising a black backing plate off revealed that the ‘cell’ was in fact a shiny transparent piece of plastic about an inch long with maroon/brown blocks printed on the back, with gaps left between them specifically to simulate the appearance of a real solar cell.

I wasn’t quite sure whether to laugh or be annoyed. Why would a company bother to design and manufacture the fake solar cell? With calculators selling for £1 each it’s surely unlikely that deceiving the customer in this way would make much difference to sales… so really, why did they bother?

Was it a conscious decision – "we can charge more for this if people think it’s solar-powered"? Or was it just that other calculators have them so it was thought that this one ought to, even though it was fake?

This – www.alibaba.com/catalog/11270592/Desktop_Calculators_Stoc… – looks to be the same or a very similar model, with the text expressly describing the "dummy solar" as if it is a feature.

(And yeah, when I actually looked more closely at the box the calculator came in – after taking it apart – I did see the "Solar cell are dummy & only for decoration" text.)

‘Solar-powered’ calculator with fake solar cell


Image by Dan Lockton
Needing a solar (photovoltaic) cell quickly for a project, I bought a cheap (£1) calculator with the solar cell clearly visible on the front.

When I took it apart, however, something was wrong: there were no wires leading fom the cell. Prising a black backing plate off revealed that the ‘cell’ was in fact a shiny transparent piece of plastic about an inch long with maroon/brown blocks printed on the back, with gaps left between them specifically to simulate the appearance of a real solar cell.

I wasn’t quite sure whether to laugh or be annoyed. Why would a company bother to design and manufacture the fake solar cell? With calculators selling for £1 each it’s surely unlikely that deceiving the customer in this way would make much difference to sales… so really, why did they bother?

Was it a conscious decision – "we can charge more for this if people think it’s solar-powered"? Or was it just that other calculators have them so it was thought that this one ought to, even though it was fake?

This – www.alibaba.com/catalog/11270592/Desktop_Calculators_Stoc… – looks to be the same or a very similar model, with the text expressly describing the "dummy solar" as if it is a feature.

(And yeah, when I actually looked more closely at the box the calculator came in – after taking it apart – I did see the "Solar cell are dummy & only for decoration" text.)