Emergency Solar Charger - Charging iPhone

As the name suggests, the Emergency Solar Charger for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch is a compact little solar-powered battery and charger, which can be used to charge up your iPod Touch or iPhone in an emergency. The charger contains a battery which is charged up via the solar panel. When you need the extra power, you just connect the charger to the iPhone. The charger will automatically charge the iPhone, giving it roughly 20% of charge.

Charging the Solar Charger

How It Works

You can charge up the charger using solar energy (so leaving it out on a sunny dashboard or windowsill) or you can charge it up via USB using the Apple USB cable (which could be via the PC, mains adapter, or via a car adapter). For the purposes of testing, I typically used the USB cable, as the charger was charged within just 2 hours. It takes a couple of days to charge the charger in sunlight, so really, you want to place the charger in strong sunlight when you’re not using it. That ensures you always have the emergency charge when you need it.

Once the charger is charged up, you just connect it to an iPhone or iPod Charger and it starts charging straight away. It takes about 20 minutes to charge up the iPhone or iPod to about 20%. If your device is completely dead when you start charging, then the charger charges the device up to around 16 to 18% (due to the power consumption when first switching on the iPod Touch or iPhone).

Emergency Solar Charger - on it's own

Feature Suggestions

The charger is very simple, it does exactly what it says on the tin. However, there are a couple of things that I suggest as minor improvements. Firstly, sometimes you need to wiggle the plug on the charger to get it to be recognised by the iPhone or iPod. I suspect there’s a microscopic difference in the connectors which means the charger is not always recognised as a charging device.

Secondly, it’d be good if there was an indicator to show how fully charged the charger is. Just a few small LEDs or a small LCD display to show if the charger is empty, half-full or fully charged. Currently, there’s no way to know how charged the charger is. Some attention here would be appreciated.

Conclusion

The Emergency Solar Charger for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch is a genuinely useful little gadget. I can imagine that it’s going to come in very useful when out and about with no power source! And costing just $5.51, it’s not going to break the bank either! Thanks to Budget Gadgets for sending me the charger to review.

Want to buy this gadget? Check out the Emergency Solar Charger for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch article on EnviroGadget to see the lowest prices for this gadget.

© 2008 to 2011 EnviroGadget.com. You can now keep up with the latest eco-gadgets on the EnviroGadget Facebook page. Why not help us to spread the word?

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The BodyGard Hand-Powered Emergency Tool is essentially a hybrid of a swiss army knife and a survival kit. The gadget contains a hand-crank so that you can charge up the internal battery for powering the built-in bright LED flashlight, the flashing red emergency light, the digital FM radio, the motion activated security alarm, or the mobile phone and cell phone charger. And those are just the electronic aspects of the 12-in-1 emergency gadget!

The tool also contains a panic button with an extremely loud sonic alarm, large 14mm diameter oil filled compass, signaling mirror to signal for help, a handy storage compartment for matches and/or pills, an adjustable lanyard to allow you to tie the tool to anything you like, and finally a charging unit so you can charge it via the mains too.

Basically this gadget gives you a lot of useful stuff for any situation where you get stranded in a remote location. The one lacking feature that might have been a good idea is a walkie-talkie. It would also have been nice to have an electronic pest deterrent. However, it’s a cool little gadget, and only costs $19.99!

Want to buy this gadget? Check out the BodyGard Hand-Powered Emergency Tool article on EnviroGadget to see the lowest prices for this gadget.

© 2008 to 2011 EnviroGadget.com. You can now keep up with the latest eco-gadgets on the EnviroGadget Facebook page. Why not help us to spread the word?

Related posts:

1. Hand Powered Wind Up Emergency Torch
2. Self-Powered Emergency Radio with Flashlight
3. Hand-powered Windup Mobile Phone Charger

With this being the camping season, no doubt you’ll want to break the silence with some music. The 3-in-1 Wind Up Radio is a perfect candidate for a campsite, since its waterproof, robust, features a strong aerial and uses hand power to charge the internal battery. Winding the crank for just 1 minute will give you 60 minutes of listening pleasure, a fair return on your effort!

If you’re out trekking, and you get into a bit of bother, you’ll appreciate the built-in siren. Need to help people find you? Just flick on the alarm, and keep charging it up until help arrives. At least you won’t get bored, as you can listen to the AM/FM radio whilst you’re waiting. Another useful feature is the built-in LED torch, allowing you to stumble your way back to the tent in time for bedtime too!

The 3-in-1 Wind Up Radio is available for just £19.95.

Want to buy this gadget? Check out the 3-in-1 Wind Up Radio with Torch and Emergency Siren article on EnviroGadget to see the lowest prices for this gadget.

© 2008 to 2011 EnviroGadget.com. You can now keep up with the latest eco-gadgets on the EnviroGadget Facebook page. Why not help us to spread the word?

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1. Wind Up & Solar Powered Portable Radio and Torch Combination By Re-Wind
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3. EyeMax Wind Up Solar Powered Radio with LED Torch Light

Recently, the NoPoPo Batteries where released. The NoPoPo batteries use urine to provide battery power. The battery is made from carbon and magnesium, and uses urine (as well as other liquids like beer, sake and cola) as an electrolyte to generate an electrical current. Well now the Japan Trend Shop is offering a NoPoPo Urine Powered Torch and Lantern gadget. The torch uses a bright white LED which can be used in lantern or flashlight mode.

Unfortunately, a NoPoPo battery can only be recharged four times, which means it has a pretty short lifespan. However, with a capacity of 500mAh, the batteries would be pretty effective in an emergency kit. The torch and batteries sell for $39 (about £24), so it’s a little pricey, but very novel!

Source: Oh! Gizmo

Want to buy this gadget? Check out the NoPoPo Urine Powered Mini Lantern article on EnviroGadget to see the lowest prices for this gadget.

© 2008 to 2011 EnviroGadget.com. You can now keep up with the latest eco-gadgets on the EnviroGadget Facebook page. Why not help us to spread the word?

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When there’s a flood, one of the biggest issues is the spread of disease through contaminated drinking water. Essentially sewage and drainage water gets into the drinking water supply, introducing some particularly nasty types of bacteria. The safe drinking water eco gadget uses the process of reverse osmosis to extract clean drinking water from contaminated water.

There are lots of ways to sterilise dirty water, such filtration, distillation, and through using chemicals. However, this flood rescue bottles designed by Ceren Bagatar are extremely easy to use, as well as being relatively low cost (around $20 to $50 per unit). Using a highly concentrated dioralyte solution that contains basic nutrients, the bottle is able to provide 15 portions of 500ml (7.5 litres) of safe drinking water per refill.

The bottles are also fitted with removable mouthpieces, where you have one mouthpiece per person. The mouthpieces encourage basic hygiene as another technique of limiting the spread of diseases.

Since there’s usually plenty of water in a flooded area, there doesn’t need to be any infrastructure to get clean water to a flood hit area. The units require no additional energy or equipment, meaning it’s a very effective technique for delivering clean drinking water in a short space of time. If the Flood Rescue Bottles are not already in the flood-hit area, they can easily be flown in by helicopter or shipped in on small boats.

Source: YankoDesign

Want to buy this gadget? Check out the Safe Drinking Water Gadget – For Flood Disaster Areas article on EnviroGadget to see the lowest prices for this gadget.

© 2008 to 2011 EnviroGadget.com. You can now keep up with the latest eco-gadgets on the EnviroGadget Facebook page. Why not help us to spread the word?

Related posts:

1. WaterMill: Drinking Water out of thin air!
2. SteriPEN – Portable Water Purifiying Gadget
3. Source Water Bottle And Dispenser System