Instead of trying to prop the solar charger on a stick or placing it on my dash and watching it fly out the window when I take a corner, the Ray solar charger has a suction cup around the solar cells. Slap it to your window and let the sun work for you. The support arm even doubles as cable storage.
The Ray is still in presale mode over at Quirky. If enough people purchase the $US39.99 device, it’ll hit production and you can feel all squishy on the inside because you’re helping the planet. Or not, who cares, I just want to charge my iPhone. [Quirky]
mike
Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 1:58 PMWhat’s the benefit of this over pluging your phone into a car charger? Isn’t the point of a solar charger to use it when you have no other power source available?
I like the idea but just don’t see the point.
Francis
Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 2:13 PMWhat mike said. This concept of solar charging in the car is a total fail.
Morkai
Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 7:41 PMwhat happens when you turn the car off? your device stops charging…
Matt
Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 10:46 AM…and I get out and go do stuff outside the car.
EckyThump
Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 2:15 PMHmmm, maybe when you’re parked up, I was going to say that you could use it to charge stuff up while you’re out of the car doing something, but then it and whatever you’re charging becomes a desirable object for tee leaves! #}
Barry
Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 2:24 PMIt’s a useful thing actually.
The more you plugged into the lighter to power or recharge devices, the power the engine has to do and that means more petrol/fuel is used. This amount of fuel depends on what is required to be powered, it could be a fridge or a GPS.
Basically it means more fuel for you over a longer period. This is one of the things that eco cars are doing, putting solar panels on the roof of a car to power the car’s aircon. Using less engery/fuel from the engine.
It’s a good idea but the amount of fuel to charge a phoen that is off is low, I will admit that.
Drew
Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 3:17 PMI think the fuel saving is trivial at best, it will take you a life time to save $40 in fuel by charging your phone with this.
Kirby
Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 2:27 PMIf you have other stuff already plugged in, this is great plus it doesn’t use up your car battery.
In any case you don’t just need to use this in the car, I can see this being used anywhere with glass.
Husky
Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 2:54 PMI like the idea, but for a very specific reason. I work First Aid at event. Now for boring events this may involve sitting in a van for up to 12 hours with nothing other than my phone, iPad and laptop, as a lot of event pass by without patients. The downside? The van we use is a mercedees Sprinter, which for some dumb reason only powers the 12v supply when the engine is running. Turning the key to accsesory will power the radio, but not the 12v. Hence, solar seems alot better than sitting in an idling car for hours on end.
panderiz
Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 2:17 PMFAIL
Natalia
Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 2:22 PMAnd how this could be nice to Earth? In 5 or so years it’ll go to landfill anyway. How many kW you’ll get out of it before that? Will it be enough to offset the carbon emitted to produce and transport this thing? And meanwhile your car generates electricity regardless if you use it or not.
But it’s a great thing for those want to charge gadgets while away from any power point.
Chris
Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 3:21 PMPerfect for camping, people need to look outside of the box.
I definitely wouldn’t have my phone sitting on the dash though. My phone gets hot enough as it is sitting in the shade charging.
DarthDVD
Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 6:44 PMok… now if this charger had lets say…. a onboard battery….. i would leave said solar charger in the car while at work.. using my phone… i would then at the end of the day and the drive home i would plug my phone into the charger taking the stored power from the onboard battery and then take the lot into the house at night so the solar chargers battery can fully charge the phone up….
repeat when needed.
Husky
Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 7:36 PMIt does have an onboard charger, which it claims is enough to fully charge a phone.
henry99
Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 10:15 PMI’m pretty sure duracell (or similar) is selling a product that does that. Is just a flat panel though, doesn’t stick to your window.
henry99
Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 10:14 PMConsidering police have been known to give out fines for GPS’ stuck to the window (obstructing view) this device looks like a great way for the police to make some extra revenue.
Idiot tax, i like it.
Sammy
Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 1:30 AMYou could just use a blob of blu tac to temporarily stick things to the dash. I do.