Comments on: Solio: a solar powered battery recharger

By: mjc

mjc — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:01:43 +0000

Also I like the idea of the device! and I’ve shared the post on friendfeed

By: mjc

mjc — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:01:19 +0000

John,

Quick note, make sure to turn “ask to join wireless networks” off as this feature wakes up the wifi radio every couple minutes to check for beacon packets…

By: John

John — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 07:40:44 +0000

hi skierpage;

For these first few charges, I’ve been making sure to fully charge/discharge/fully charge out of a personal paranoia about battery memory. The manual says 8hr for full charge on sunny day, 12hrs on a cloudy day, and 10hrs from USB, so I’ve always been leaving the Solio all day to charge, just to be super sure. Over the coming months, I’ll start experimenting with just how long does it *really* need for a full charge – stay tuned!

(also, fyi, the manual claims the solar panels have 0.85W max output.)

tc
John.

By: skierpage

skierpage — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:51:38 +0000

Thanks, I read about this but many solar gizmos are nearly snake oil. It seems the Solio’s solar panels put out 1W at best (twice the Brando solar charger’s) and its battery stores 5.5 Watt hours (only slightly more than the iPhone 3G), so does it takes about 8 hours of full sunlight to recharge?

Everyone agrees that any device that can’t power itself and recharge its battery over USB == complete FAIL, yet it’s hard to find this out from reviews and specifications. My Olympus FE-230 camera, Sanyo Katana II DLX and MM-1000 phones are all failures, but they had to die while plugged in to USB before I found out.

By: Robert Accettura

Robert Accettura — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 22:18:34 +0000

I had a similar predicament. Due to the cost and the fact that I’m indoors most of the time, I went with an APC portable battery. Same deal but no solar panels. For about $20 it was a bargain and can charge my iPhone more than once on a single charge.