Hey all! It’s time for another review from XboxMySocks. I originally planned on reviewing a screen protector I got but it’s still on the way, and in the meantime my father (after some conferring and recommendation on my part) ordered a solar charging panel for the iPhone/iPad. This was pretty interesting to me because I love renewable energy, and charging my iDevices (and computer, but that’s a different story for a different time) is a really large part of my carbon footprint.
So here is the one we settled on: a 19 watt panel from Choetech - I have had great results with them in the past and figured that it would be worth a try to check it out. It showed up in their neat little box I’ve become fairly accustomed to - low profile, small and recycled materials which is nice.
It has a nice little pouch so you can plug something in and zip it up and forget about it, which actually turned out to be the way that I charge devices most. It also had some protective bubble-ish packaging around the panels when it shipped, which was nice because they don’t work if you drop it and break the internal structure.
I have a schedule that doesn’t usually allow me to charge the phone directly during the day, so I set up 2 areas in the front and back of the house so I can put it on one side and let it charge an external battery in the morning, then move it into the other spot at night. When I need to charge something, I take the battery out and use it to charge something and put it back when I’m done.
Happy? Oh yeah I’m happy.
It charges the iPhone directly pretty well as well, but the iPad is a somewhat slow because of the indoor location - this wasn’t *really* meant to be used inside as a ‘replacement’ to your charger like I wanted, but more as a camping/hiking solution for having your equipment die on long hikes. It does that part very well though, as it has a little eye hook so you can clip it onto a backpack and then charge your devices with.
Overall, I actually quite like this thing. It’s not *perfect* as an in-house solar panel solution but it wasn’t exactly meant for that in the first place, it works great for what I wanted it to do.
So here is the one we settled on: a 19 watt panel from Choetech - I have had great results with them in the past and figured that it would be worth a try to check it out. It showed up in their neat little box I’ve become fairly accustomed to - low profile, small and recycled materials which is nice.
It has a nice little pouch so you can plug something in and zip it up and forget about it, which actually turned out to be the way that I charge devices most. It also had some protective bubble-ish packaging around the panels when it shipped, which was nice because they don’t work if you drop it and break the internal structure.
I have a schedule that doesn’t usually allow me to charge the phone directly during the day, so I set up 2 areas in the front and back of the house so I can put it on one side and let it charge an external battery in the morning, then move it into the other spot at night. When I need to charge something, I take the battery out and use it to charge something and put it back when I’m done.
Happy? Oh yeah I’m happy.
It charges the iPhone directly pretty well as well, but the iPad is a somewhat slow because of the indoor location - this wasn’t *really* meant to be used inside as a ‘replacement’ to your charger like I wanted, but more as a camping/hiking solution for having your equipment die on long hikes. It does that part very well though, as it has a little eye hook so you can clip it onto a backpack and then charge your devices with.
Overall, I actually quite like this thing. It’s not *perfect* as an in-house solar panel solution but it wasn’t exactly meant for that in the first place, it works great for what I wanted it to do.