Eternal sunshine for your cell
The hot Hawaiian sun wasn't enough to lull Randolph Gray to sleep. No, the Round Rock, Texas, engineer was distracted by a group of teen girls fretting about dying cellphone batteries. "People were already running around the beach with bags and coolers," says Gray. "So why not add solar panels?" A few years after that vacation, Gray has his own company, Innovus Designs, that makes the Eclipse Solar Gear line of products with built-in, electricity-generating panels.
His firm is just one of several companies trying to sell the sun as a rou-tine power source for portable electronics. They're making new jackets, bags, and other gear with plastic panels that convert sunlight to electricity. "It's about recharging mobile devices while they're actually mobile," says Scott Jordan, whose company, ScotteVest, has added solar panels to the back of jackets.
Not that these solar options can completely cut the cord: The panels merely add a boost to batteries, extending their life but hardly replacing wall outlets. It takes a lot of rays to fully recharge a dead cell battery--perhaps half a day's worth when skies are clear. And forget trying to charge anything bigger than a phone or MP3 player. These small, flexible panels can't squeeze enough sun juice to power a drained laptop or a portable TV. And, of course, the panels don't help much on a cloudy day and add $100 to $250 to the cost of gear.
So it would seem cheaper and more reliable to carry a second, charged-up battery. But that requires planning; the makers of the new solar accessories want to effortlessly add the sun's power to your normal routines. Eclipse Solar Gear--which, actually, wouldn't be much good in such a celestial event--plans a full line of cases (eclipsesolargear .com) with built-in panels, from coolers to fishing tackle boxes to tool chests. First to market is the Reactor Solar Backpack ($130), a durable-feeling day pack with flexible solar panels. The Solar Flare messenger bag ($130) should be available this month, Gray says. An optional battery pack, which would serve as a reservoir of power, may be available later this year.
A battery pack already is standard in solar backpacks from Voltaic Systems (voltaicsystems.com). The Voltaic backpack is considerably more expensive at $230 but also comes with larger solar panels that can charge gadgets as much as 50 percent faster than the Eclipse models. And the built-in battery means the pack should be gathering power even if your phone isn't plugged in. Both the Voltaic and Eclipse products have a 12-volt outlet for use with the adapters that charge a gadget via a car's cigarette lighter.
ScotteVest's solar panels are an addition to its line of clothing, which features multiple hidden pockets for carrying electronics--and includes channels for wires to connect the devices in what the company calls a "personal area network." The solar panels ($225) attach to its Finetex jackets ($200), which come in either red or black and have 30 pockets, plus another dozen or so in an optional fleece liner. The solar panels are more flexible than those in the bags and relatively stylish. The coats also come with a battery for storing power, but attaching that battery to your gizmos could pose a bit of a challenge. ScotteVest adopted a setup that relies on Universal Serial Bus adapters. USB power adapters are less common than those for cigarette lighters, and some devices, like early iPod music players, can't draw power through USB. Jordan says he plans to add a cigarette-lighter port to upcoming versions.
The future has long held promise for solar power, which has never lived up to the hype. But rising oil prices have given solar research new life--one company, Konarka Technologies in Massachusetts, may soon market power-gathering fibers that can be woven into tents and clothing. Who knows: Maybe they'll end up in beach towels, too?
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This story appears in the April 4, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.