Personal Solar Panel Twenty Time More Powerful Than Rivals
Posted in: Environment, R&D and Inventions, solar power, Today's Chili
The Joos Orange is a solar panel that promises to make sun-power useful, rather than just a hippy’s dream. By using top-end components and some clever circuitry, the panel wrings around 20x the juice from the falling sun-rays than other chargers. Sound impressive? It is, and it manages to do it for just $100.
With just an hour in the sun, the Joos Orange will generate (and store in its li-ion battery) enough power to keep you talking on the phone for two and a half hours. This compares to 5-20 minutes for other chargers (according to the company’s figures). Let the thing lounge in the sun all day long and it will end up with enough power to charge an iPhone four time over.
The Joos Orange comes from California-based Solar Components, and apart from the circuitry which optimizes the use of the charge, it uses a very efficient mono-crystalline solar cell instead of a poly-crystalline cell. It will charge in low light, can be charged via USB if there really is no sun, and the polycarbonate and steel body is waterproof, meaning it’ll even charge underwater. When the battery finally dies after 1,000 cycles you can still power gadgets before the replacement battery turns up.
The Joos Orange will ship in June, but Gadget Lab should be getting its hand on a test unit soon. We’re pretty excited: If the panel lives up to its promise, it pretty much means the end of plugging gadgets into the mains, especially here in sunny Spain. And at just $100, 24-ounces (680 grams) and 6×8×1-inches (half the size of a legal pad) its cheap and portable, too.
Joos Orange [Solar Joos. Thanks, Dave!]
Press release [Eon]
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