2006.12.26

Solar Mobile

Posted in House and Home, Travel at 8:38 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel

The stockings were hung, and Santa delivered. I got a number of great gifts this year (thanks, everyone), but I have to say, the coolest gift I got this year caught me a little off guard.

No, I didn’t get a Wii (though I probably will at some point), and I already have an iPod, so that’s not it either. But the iPod guess isn’t all that far off, as it turns out.

I got a Solio.

I vaguely remember hearing about this thing a while back, but it didn’t register. And it certainly wasn’t on my radar at all. But now that I have one, I’m amazed at how infinitely freakin’ cool it is.

Solio is a travelling eco-nerd’s dream come true. You stick it in the sun and it charges. Then you can plug it into your mobile phone, iPod, Nintendo DS, or whatever you’ve got, and Solio will charge that.

This is a great thing for a couple of reasons.

  1. When I travel, I can take one charger instead of a whole bunch. It will charge everything I currently have and also will charge things I’m considering picking up.
  2. I hang it in a sunny window while I’m at work (or sitting on a beach sipping margaritas), and it’s fully charged in about a day.
  3. Cloudy day? Solio’s parade won’t get rained out – it comes with a wall adapter with plug adapters for pretty much everywhere in the world.

This means that when I decide to head overseas I can continue on with my digital lifestyle without hunting down a bunch of plug adapters and things for the countries I’m visiting. I can just bring the solio, the appropriate dongles for my devices, and the plug adapters I need for the countries I’m visiting.

Solio also gets bonus points for being able to charge my razr, which won’t charge over a standard USB connection to a computer without a bit of voodoo. Yes, I’m glaring at you Motorola. I realize you want to milk the overpriced accessory market, but honestly…

After trying it out with my razr and my iPod, I’m thrilled with it. It fully charged my iPod from darn near empty in a few hours while sitting in the sun, and still had plenty of charge left. Very cool. It also solves a problem I was having – I don’t have an iPod dock or other wall adapter to charge my iPod – I have a car charger and I also charge it via USB all the time, but when I’m visiting the relatives, sometimes neither car nor USB is handy. Solio’s great in that situation.