Voltaic OffGrid Solar Backpack ….This is not a new release gadget, but worthy of discussion.
Well, it’s actually pretty cool and for anyone looking for a little solar power whilst they’re out hiking, camping or travelling then this is the useful gadget for you!
All the major things you look for in a backpack are here – waterproof, padded, a waist strap. You can thread cables and bladders through it, easily accessible storage for your phone and including the weight of the solar pack, it weighs just over 2kg.
The solar panels are Lightweight, Waterproof and built to withstand abuse. I’m just not sure is classified as “abuse”!
The solar pocket is removable and you can attach it to other bags or anything else whilst it charges…. I particularly like that.
Aside from charging all your handheld accessories – laptop, phone, camera, it has reasonable storage space, plus more sleeves and pockets.
Of course we don’t all want to take our laptops with us when hiking, but at night, the power to upload your photos and so on could be quite handy, although personally I feel the 4 watt charge would probably take too long to charge a lappy. Probably better suited to smaller devices that don’t consume as much power.
And it is, I believe, imperative that your phone is always charged in case of emergencies.
You can also charge the battery it comes with from a USB connection, so sunlight is not necessarily imperative, al the time. The battery will be fully charged from 7 hrs of sunlight. Your smart phone will give you 3hrs of usage from 1 hr in the sun according to the website.
It will not charge tablets that charge as 12 or 16 volts, so make sure your devices are compatible before you get all excited and rush out to buy yourself a gadget Backpack.
The price point is around $298.00. That is from an Australian site. It would probably be worthwhile to use the “googlemeister” to search for more reasonable price points if you wanted to purchase one of these backpacks.
There’s quite a lot of technical information available about this product, which you can browse on the website:- http://www.voltaicsystems.com/offgrid
Happy backpacking!
