Awesome Stuff: Solar Chargers

Innovation

from the charge-me-up... dept

For this week’s awesome stuff of interesting crowdfunding projects, we take a quick dive into solar powered chargers. There are a ton of solar power projects on Kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms out there — some more ridiculous than others. Here are four more interesting ones that really just focus on charging up your personal devices.

• Solarpod Pyxis The Solarpod Pyxis is a decent looking 5,000 mAh battery that charges in the sun. They claim the entire battery charges in 4.5 hours, only slightly slower than charging it directly via USB (also an option if you want it). The battery can then be used to charge your phones and tablets and such. They also tossed in 32GB of memory (and an SD card slot) which is a nice add on.
• Gidgi Okay, how about the Gidgi, which is really a phone case/wallet that also happens to include some solar cells as well. As they note, this way the phone charges any time it’s out of your pocket in the light (which I guess assumes you’ll be leaving your phone out somewhere to charge it during the day). Looks a little bulky to me, but might be right for some folks.
• Solar Socket This is for installing in your home. The Solar Socket is a small solar panel and battery that you install on your home (battery size varies based on which model you get), and then you put in a wall socket that has some USB ports that allow you to charge directly off the solar powered battery. Consider it a simpler way of using solar energy without converting your entire house.
• The Sun Strap And, finally, we’ve got the Sun Strap. The problem with some of those other solutions is that you have to be willing to leave the devices out in the sun somewhere for long enough that the charging is actually useful. But how many people sit in direct sunlight for that long? The Sun Strap focuses on getting a solar charge while you’re out walking around by putting the solar cells on a strap that goes on your backpack straps. As they note, there are other solar backpacks out there, but putting the panels on the strap just seems… nicer (and a lot less expensive).

That’s it for this week. Go get some sun.

Filed Under: awesome stuff, crowdfunding, innovation, solar