Gadgets & Gizmos: Balcony solar panels, 3D-printed banjos and a air-conditioned jackets for dogs

I'm going to start today by talking about solar panels, which people like to install on their roofs.

But what do you do if you're in a flat and you don't have a handy roof to put it on? Well, as of today, you can now buy a solar panel to put on your balcony and you just plug it in.

And any appliances in your house will use power from the panel first.

You can't sell it back to the national grid and you can't store it.

So you can only use it while the solar panel is actually generating power.

So if you want to watch TV at night, then you're going to use your regular electricity.

Is it just plugged in and somehow the electrical circuits will take the power from that? How do

they know? Well, there's some very clever software involved.

You do have to tell the National Grid that you're using it.

But I suppose when you buy it, then it'll tell you.

They tend to be around 800 watts and you're only allowed one per household.

for reasons that I don't really know, but you only had one perhaps.

Discrimination against

aristocrats owning stately homes.

That must be it.

And they reckon you can save between £70 and £110 a year, but since they cost around £500 to buy...

It would take you quite a while to save that much.

So they say that the first place to stop them will be Argos.

Well, doing my research, I went onto the Argos website.

They list a lot of solar panels.

They don't live this one.

So I did a search for Argos balcony solar panel, and all the ads were from Amazon.

for solar panels, so I went onto Amazon, nothing there.

They don't list them.

So I think they're all getting ready to list them, but they don't yet.