Since there's plethora of devices shown in the show that's powered by electricity (for instance lights for Rarity's show, medical equipment, DJ P0n3's set and so on), what would be the ideal power source for those devices?

What kind of power sources could exist in Equestria?

I've shared in thread few weeks ago, that the magic could be gathered as a source of bioelectric energy.

What are your thoughts?
~Twi

3337699
It may not be in widespread use (compared to our society), but it would appear that they have hydroelectricity:

(Yes, it still counts as canon even for people who hated the episode.)

3337750
Oh, I completely forgot about that.

Now; what about something a little bit more... portable?
~Twi

3337754
Most people do, assuming they even noticed it in the first place.

They don't appear to be big on both portability and power; anything that can be moved around easily seems to be either hoof-cranked...

...or unicorn-powered:

Although that's just off the top of my head. I'm sure someone will soon bring up an example I've forgotten.

3337776
Hm, yes. But I'm pretty sure that there were watches at some point in the show...

~Twi

Sure there are.

But watches were driven by springs for decades and decades* before anyone made a battery small enough to put inside one.

*Centuries? Not sure how far back the invention of the pocket watch goes; might have to look it up.

3337795
It is centuries.

Dated 1571
But...

The concept of the wristwatch goes back to the production of the very earliest watches in the 16th century. Elizabeth I of England received a wristwatch from Robert Dudley in 1571, described as an arm watch.

Also; I used to own self-winding wristwatch at one time.
~Twi

3337831
Which still leads us back to something that's essentially hoof-cranked -- Pinkie's watch is likely to be of the wind-up variety rather than battery-powered. Rainbow's drawing of a watch even includes a winding stem:

Also, I got the same era (16th century) when I looked up pocket watches on Wikipedia, and I'm pretty confident that batteries small enough to fit into a watch didn't come along until the 20th century. Technologically speaking, there doesn't seem to be much indication the ponies have anything like that right now. Could they have such a thing with a magical basis? Sure. But again, either it's not in widespread use... or maybe the idea simply hasn't come to them yet.

3337852
3337831

Ooh! Watches!

I have to get involved now.

There are two ways we can look at the watches in the show. As gag feats, which means they can't be used as proof, or, for the sake of this thread, a different power source.

Now, pocket watches around the 19th century would use a key to be wound up to continue it's timekeeping.

Now according to Guinness World Records, the first wristwatch was designed for a Countess of Hungary. Purely designed as a jewelry piece. But the wristwatch didn't see widespread use until about first world war. It had been used before in other military campaigns, but WWI is when it became modernized, as they were originally seen as a woman's thing.

There are two major movements, or how they keep time.

Mechanical: The easiest way to describe this is to just imagine a miniaturized pendulum clock.

These watches are expensive to make, not very accurate, and are very fragile.

Quartz: This watch uses a small quartz piece vibrating at 8,192 Hz. These watches are very cheap to make, rugged, durable, and accurate. In fact, these are the most accurate watches on the market.

According to Wikipedia, the first self-winding watch was made in 1770. But this was for pocket watches. There are, however, wristwatches you can buy on the market today that use the movement of your wrist to wind itself up. The only problem is, these are expensive name-brand watches.

My conclusion: The writers never thought we would look so deeply into small scenes containing a watch and a drawing of a watch and thus didn't put any thought into how it was powered or how it worked. They just took a normal watch and made it cartoonish.

3337699 Well, seeing how the pegasi control the weather, I don't think it's impossible for the pegasi to generate some electricity from the cloud and for some scientist to harness it (maybe using electric rods).

-W.S.

If they have electricity, I don't see why they wouldn't have at least tried to create some sort of electromagic. Like how Flim and Flam powered their superspeedycidersqueezy with pure magic.

I mostly go with they use Hydroelectric power because it's the safest and most efficient.