Best answer: The best way to use solar power is to pick up a portable battery pack with a solar panel built-in or a solar panel array with USB ports built-in for charging. Both of these options will help to keep your phone charged by harnessing the power of the sun.
- Pack up the sun: FEELLE Solar Power Bank ($40 at Amazon)
- Seek out the sun: BigBlue 28W Solar Charger ($76 at Amazon)
The sun is your friend
Phones are essential to people for all sorts of reasons, but they’re pretty much worthless if they have no juice. A typical way to power these slabs of technology is by plugging them into an outlet at your home or office, possibly with a battery pack that was charged the same way. However, this option fails if the power is out or you’re away from an outlet.
There are alternative ways to get power to your phone cleanly and away from the electrical grid. One of those options is to use the power of the sun, and it couldn’t be easier. There are ways of powering your entire home with solar, but it can be costly, and you may not own your home, which can make installing solar panels on it out of the question. So, instead of using solar for everything you own that has a plug, let’s look at a couple of easy and much less expensive ways to keep your phone juiced up.
Putting the sun to work
First off is to use a portable battery pack that comes with a built-in solar panel, or in the case of my personal favorite, panels. I have a FEELLE 24000 mAh solar power bank that has been a stalwart in my travel bag, whether I’m hiking in the mountains or hanging out in the backyard. There are a lot of benefits of a battery pack that can be recharged using the sun. Because modern phones have large batteries, using a high-capacity battery pack means you’ll have multiple recharges for your phone, even when the sun is hiding.
See, charging via solar is great, but it isn’t the fastest way to get your phone’s battery topped off. Because most compact-sized solar panels are small and can only catch so much sun, the output it can be capable of is also small. While a lot of solar battery packs have one panel, the pack from FEELLE has three that fold out to gather more sunlight.
Letting a quality battery pack kick out higher wattage to your phone so you can get back to using it is great. Then the sun can slowly top off your battery pack while you don’t need to use it.
The other option for solar charging is to use a setup designed for outputting higher power levels specifically to charge your phone. As mentioned above, to catch more rays from the sun you need more surface area. Something like the BigBlue 28W solar charger will catch plenty of sunshine with its larger panels.
However, because the panels are a bit bigger, you won’t be putting it into your pocket or even a small backpack. Something else to keep in mind with chargers like the BigBlue is that these setups don’t come with a battery. Instead, you get a large panel for a higher output while in use. So if there’s no sunlight, you won’t be charging anything. It can still keep your device topped off while letting your back-up battery stay full for times when the sun isn’t out.
Both the FEELLE solar battery back and the BigBlue are both water and shock-resistant, designed to be on adventures outdoors. With the FEELLE you also get a built-in LED flashlight to go along with the massive battery pack. Each of these chargers also has multiple USB ports for charging more than one device at a time.
So whether you are looking for a way to cut back on your usage of the electrical grid to save some cash or to find a small way to help the environment, consider using solar to recharge your phone the next time you’re ready to plug it in.
Soak it up
FEELLE Solar Power Bank
$40 at Amazon
$82 at Newegg
Save it for later
Equipped with three fold-out solar panels, an LED light, and two USB ports, the 24,000 mAh battery pack is ready to charge you up anywhere your adventures take you. Between the water-resistance and its ability to power up via the sun, you are free to roam.
Go big
BigBlue 28W Solar Charger
$76 at Amazon
$118 at Newegg
Harness the sun
BigBlue’s 28W 5V solar panel is designed to charge up to three phones at ones with its triple USB port setup. While it doesn’t have a battery to store energy, the larger sized water-resistant panels will be able to generate enough juice to keep your devices powered up while the sun’s up.
A guide to Earth Day 2020 🌍
Android Central
- Earth Day 2020: A guide to making better tech decisions in the era of climate change
- The single most eco-friendly thing you can on Earth Day is …
- Is wireless, wired charging, or ‘Fast Charging’ more efficient?
- This fantastic smart plug is an Earth Day essential
- Fairphone 3 review: The most repairable phone ever
- An interview with Fairphone about making a sustainable gadget
- Best ‘green’ tech products and accessories
- Best eco-friendly phone accessories
- How to recycle your old phone
- What happens to a phone when you sell to a recycling company?
- 8 ways to reuse an old Android device
- How to charge a phone using solar
- About those companies you thought were eco friendly …
iMore
- Earth Day 2020: A comprehensive guide to how our technology affects the world
- Are tech companies leading the charge for eco-friendliness?
- All the resources that go into your favorite gadgets
- What is carbon neutrality?
- Best eco-friendly iPhone accessories
- Tips to easily and affordably be more eco friendly
- 7 simple ways to shrink your eco footprint
- Best smart home accessories to reduce eco impact
Windows Central
- Introduction to our Earth Day guide
- Best eco-friendly PC accessories
- Is your RGB PC an eco nightmare?
- Make your game console eco-friendly by disabling standby
- Rechargeable batteries vs. throwaway batteries
- Make your power-hungry gaming PC more eco
