this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2024

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My solar powered everyday carry electronics (dubvee.org)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

23 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hope this fits here.

It's not much in the grand scheme, but all of my everyday carry electronics are all solar charged.

Left to right: Cat S22 Flip smartphone, Bluetooth earbuds, rechargable pen light/laser pointer/black light/dog toy, and my Kobo e-reader.

They're mostly charged / topped up overnight from my 12W / 8000 mAh solar battery bank. I just throw it outside or in a window during the day and plug a USB hub into it to charge my devices overnight. My phone will usually go 2-3 days on a charge, but I've also got a 6W panel I stick in the window if it needs a little battery boost during the day. I also top off other things from the 6W panel, but those aren't exclusively solar like my EDC stuff.

Thought I was going to have to cheat a week or so ago. It was rainy and cloudy for nearly 2 weeks, and the solar battery bank was struggling to stay above 50%, but the clouds finally broke and my solar bank was able to fully recharge with a few hours of sunlight to spare.

Like I said, it's not much, but these have only ever been charged from solar**, and I think that's pretty cool.

** Except the bit of charge my phone and e-reader got from my laptop when I had it plugged into USB to flash firmware and add files.

My solar battery bank. (Not the best design with an integrated, non-removable battery, but has worked well enough)

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I also have a foldable one that directly discharges to USB. Never really occurred to me to charge a USB power bank with it during the day though 😅

It's very useful to charge my video drone during camping trips though.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 5 months ago

Never really occurred to me to charge a USB power bank with it during the day though

Lol. I used to just charge things directly, but I found it was less fuss to just charge a big power bank and then charge the rest of my stuff from that later. There's some efficiency loss with that method, but I don't have to spend my relaxation time worrying about resource management and swapping devices around.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This is vert cool and inspiring. I would like to try to use more solar energy. Do you have a recommendation for a solar charger?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It depends on your use case, but this one is on my wish list. (Amazon link) The small ones that are the size of regular power banks will take a week or more to fully charge and should be avoided as junk. I'd also recommend avoiding any that have integrated batteries (more below).

The one I have is discontinued, but it's the iClever 12W solar with integrated 8000 mAh battery. It's not the best design with the integrated battery that sits out in the sun all day. It will often overheat and stop charging until it cools down, so I have to check on it periodically. Luckily, with what I'm charging with it, I only ever run it down to about 60-70% most days, and it will charge back up before it gets too hot out in the sun. I've used it since 2020, and it's still going strong (I try not to deplete it below 40% which I think helps keep the battery happy).

Those are good for backpacking/travel as well as around the house.

It's a lot less portable, but for camping, I've got a 12v 50 watt panel that I hooked a 12v 45 watt USB-C power delivery adapter into. That will give me 5-20 volts DC at up to 45 watts. I mostly top off my big power bank from that, but it has also charged my laptop easily.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

And bookmarked! As an electrician with a soldering kit I barely use, this is as good a reason as any.

Plus, maybe I can figure out a good way to top off my power tools!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

What kind of phone is that?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Cat S22 Flip. Low-end smartphone running Android in a dumb phone form factor. Bought it for a 30 day challenge / digital detox and ended up loving it and kept using it as my daily driver.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Nice! thank you!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Ngl. I’m an apple fan boy.

But. That cat22 has come across my mind quite a few times over the last few weeks.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I realize it's not for everyone, but I absolutely love this thing. My old smartphone has been demoted to wifi tablet when I need it, but it mostly lives in my bag.

[+] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

Several reasons, but digital detoxing was one of the goals.

Out of curiosity, I wanted to see if I could go 30 days in the modern world with a dumb phone. This one was actually cheaper than the other dumb phone I was looking at but was more capable (I also liked that I could re-purpose it after the experiment was over). I just disabled a lot of its functionality for the 30 day challenge to dumb it down to just what a modern dumb phone can do. Challenge was successful, but afterward, for quality of life, I re-enabled the app store, browser, and allowed myself some basic apps (bank, TOTP, email, Matrix, etc).
I'm beyond bored with the "tall skinny rectangle" form factor and wanted to try something different. I'm old enough that T9/tap typing is still in my muscle memory, so that was a surprisingly easy transition. Only took me about a day to get back into the full swing of it.
I spent too much time doom scrolling. During the 30 day challenge, I cut out most of that by way of not having it available. Afterward, the small screen and weird form factor kind of helped reinforce that. I do have a Lemmy client on there, lol, and have posted from it.

After using it for 30 days, I found that I just didn't really miss my tall skinny rectangle all that much and decided to stick with it (after un-dumbing it). It covers all of my needs and most of my wants. I still keep my actual smartphone in my bag if I need it, but it's mostly just a mini wifi tablet that sees occasional use.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Thank you!

See everything you just said is what I’m thinking…

I’d prefer a dumb phone to get away from online crap.

But I have to have TOTP and banking and security apps

So … this really makes pause and think

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Here's some things I found in my research before I bought that one. Maybe you'll find them helpful since you're looking at it from the same angle I was.

Modern dumb phones have come a ways since the mid 00's. The few dumb phones I was looking at also support hotspot. That was the big thing that pushed me to try this since I frequently rely on my phone being a hotspot for work, and I assumed dumb phones couldn't do that. Seems like that's a fairly common feature on them these days.

A lot of them run KaiOS (which is kind-of FirefoxOS in the same way that Android is a Linux distro). They have decent web browsers (Firefox, obv) as well as apps, including TOTP. The only reason I "need" the bank app versus the online banking through the web browser is occasionally needing to do a few things that only the app can do (scan to deposit checks, etc). I was willing to go without the bank app, though.

I was originally looking at the Nokia 2780. The only reason I went with this one instead of a true dumb/feature phone is that I knew I could use this one as a SIP handset, if nothing else, after my 30 day challenge was up. It was also about $15 cheaper than the Nokia, so that pretty much sealed it. I could probably get by with a regular dumb phone, but this one is kind of the perfect middle ground for me.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

So cool!!! I felt inspired to do the same. Some day I'll post my own solar-powered setup

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I have a similar foldable solar charger at home but when I charge my power bank with it, the power banks charge display number goes bonkers. Sometimes up, sometimes down. So I stopped charging it by solar as to not damage the battery inside.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I've only got one older power bank that goes all glitchy like that with my 6W panel, and I really don't know why either. The output from the panel is regulated, so it should be happy with it, but it just flickers, makes a high pitched whine, and never seems to charge. Best guess is it's not able to cope with anything less than a minimum charging current that the panel can't provide. Thankfully it's only that one that is temperamental, and it's also my oldest / lowest capacity one.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

This is cool. When I get a chance, I wanna submit one of these too.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

What brand/model penlight is that?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

It's actually a cat toy, and I got a two-pack of them from Amazon for like $10. Both are solar charged, and I keep one at home for the dogs and the other with me to use as a pen light. I have no idea what the blacklight mode is for, but it's a feature.

This is the same thing under a different listing, but it's just a single one: https://www.amazon.com/Pointer-Indoor-Projection-Playpen-Recharge/dp/B09TN6P3QK/

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I have no idea what the blacklight mode is for, but it's a feature.
You can check if banknotes/driving licences* are counterfeit, and if you turn the lights off in your bathroom and then look at the toilet with the blacklight, you'll be more thorough when you clean it!

Just realised, you could use it in hotels as well :-(

We have a desk mounted one at work as part of security checks on driver's licences.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Thanks. That does sound way more useful then I was thinking.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Thanks for looking it up, I might actually buy one