Solar Home 620 (SH620) has been an existing solar lighting BioLite product in East African markets.
As part of the Sustaining Issues team, I have led technical and field investigations required to make viable SH620 improvements to enhance the experience of new and existing users.
Low-Light Investigation
I co-led the effort to investigate and enhance SH620's solar charging capabilities under low-light conditions.
Issue:
Field reports showed user dissatisfaction with charging performance on overcast and rainy days.
Schematic where 'Psol' is solar power supplied to system (circuit board) and 'Pbatt' is power moving between battery and system
Investigation:
I underwent a rigorous investigation to simulate and scope the charge and user interface behavior under similar reported weather conditions.
Path to Product Improvement:
Electrical testing allowed me to understand the behavior of a solar power threshold associated with our user interface.
From this, the team and I identified a path to product improvement by lowing this solar power threshold in the product firmware—telling the product to "turn-on" at a lower power input.
Competitor Analysis:
Investigating competitor product behavior was critical to understanding market expectations and product limitations that may remain with our proposed change.
Understanding Impact:
Analyzing weather patterns in key countries allowed us to evaluate the long-term magnitude of impact affiliated with the proposed product change.
