Solar power extends beyond roof panels and those walkway lights you’ve been holding onto for the last decade.
It’s in just about everything. These solar gadgets show just how far we’re bringing solar energy, even in smaller applications.
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1. Solar Fountain
Imagine using solar power to actually force water to come up in a jet stream, and come back down into the fountain. Well, you don’t have to imagine that – it’s an actual thing.
Like many solar gadgets, it comes with its picadillos, but this is actually a fairly effective little piece (it would have to be for thousands of people to have bought them).
With different spray heads, nozzles, and ways you can have the water come up, these panels run your fountain throughout the day as long as the water isn’t too deep.
It’s a nice little way to spruce up your front yard and make it regal for a super low cost. If the fountain only works a little bit, you have too much water in your fountain or area that you put this.
2. Solar Powered Battery Bank
We all want a bigger, better battery life for our phones, but as lithium-ion batteries age, they don’t hold up so well. When this happens, you need a bit of extra juice to carry you through.
These are the type of solar items that really paved the way for power banks in general, which are now even used in portable generators that you use in your homes.
This power bank stores up to 20000mAh in the battery, includes two LED flashlights, and a dual USB 5V outlet so you can charge your phone at your discretion.
This is basically the best thing in the world for camping – you can have your phone on you for emergencies, and never run out of battery, as long as it’s not raining for the entire trip. Everyone should have one of these in their emergency preparedness kit.
3. 28-LED Outdoor Solar Flood Lights
Getting home late and need some light to illuminate the path to your door?
We all want to be safer, especially around our own homes. These motion sensor lights operate just like you’d expect them to, with 400 lumens of bright, focused light to illuminate your path.
These have an excellent battery retention, which allow you to leave them out all day soaking up the sun’s rays, and still have ample light at night. These can work well for home security to deter burglars, or simply to keep a good visual on your yard so you don’t run into an animal while trying to get into your car in the early AM.
4. Solar-Powered Fairy Light Coil
Everyone loves Christmas, and I see these being used on the gutters or the fence of your home in the middle of the winter season. Let’s face it: energy bills absolutely suck during December, but you can keep the festivities alive and mitigate your bills all at the same time.
They’re not exactly Christmas lights, but the gold adds a nice touch, and the universally beloved design means it can be used for other purposes as well.
Birthdays, baby showers, or just a nice party on the back deck at night – you could use these just about anywhere that you fancy.
The solar panel is entirely waterproof, and sticks out of the peg attachment right into the ground. However, you could detach the peg and simply install this solar panel somewhere else (which is recommended).
If you’re going to set this up on the roof, you can use a simple adhesive like double-back tape to keep this steady. Even if the adhesive gives way, the wire connecting the first fairy light to the panel is relatively short, so the panel won’t break.
5. Solar Bike Lock
You know what’s better than solar power?
Solar power and bluetooth combined. When you put this bike lock on your bicycle, it locks automatically, and there’s no key. That sounds scary, but it’s actually a good thing. This lock is hooked up to bluetooth, which connects to your phone, and acts as an authentication method.
Basically, once you get really close to it, the bluetooth connection makes the lock open, saving you time when you’re unfastening your bike from the pole or tree where you left it, while keeping everything nice and safe.
This would be a rather unsettling concept if there wasn’t a solar panel included—imagine getting locked out of your bike with no key because the lithium-ion died, you know?
6. Solar Bluetooth Speaker
This is particularly rad, and a great way to use solar energy. Bluetooth speakers are one of the best inventions of the last twenty years (convince me otherwise), but the one problem with outdoor bluetooth speakers is that they always end up dying before you get full use out of them.
Sure, brands like JBL have long-term batteries, but can you really afford a JBL bluetooth speaker?
The perfect balanced choice is ABFOCE’s solar-powered bluetooth speaker.
Not only does the battery hold up to sixty playtime hours worth of energy in its impressive 5000mAh power bank, but it includes a wide solar panel on the top of the speaker to constantly recharge that battery while you use it in the middle of summertime.
Plug in your phone to the power bank to soak up a full charge, and let that panel do its work. This is mildly waterproof with an IPX6 rating, and includes a fairly decent conversion rate. You get about three hours of charge per one hour that it spends in the sun.
7. FosPower Emergency Solar + Hand Crank Radio
Emergency radios are something that people don’t think about, but it’s something every household should have. Problem is, when you have one and don’t think about it, the batteries die and you’re left with a not-so-helpful emergency measure when disaster strikes. It doesn’t do you any favors.
Unless it can be charged by the sun, or utilized with a hand crank. This bright, high-end emergency solar radio comes with a built-in panel that can be adjusted to get a better angle depending on the position of the sun.
That, and it comes with a slew of emergency features that help you in a pinch, such as an SOS alarm and NOAA weather radio channel.
8. WALI Simulated CCTV Solar Cameras
Want to make it seem like you have CCTV on your property without needing a server, recording equipment, wiring, and a place to store all the footage?
Oftentimes, the appearance of home security is enough to deter thieves and trespassers without the equipment needing to function at all. WALI set up this fantastic pack of CCTV solar cameras that actually light up as if they were operating, thanks to solar power.
There’s a wire running to the mounting bracket pipe to make it appear like the wires are actually going into your home, as well as LEDs on the lenses for vibrancy. Thanks to the sloped hoods on the front, these are protected from the rain, so your lights won’t ensure moisture damage.
You can use the dial and latch release to adjust your cameras as you see fit. The best thing to do here is pretend that they are in fact real CCTV cameras, and position them as if they were looking at your front door, walkway, backyard – any potential areas where criminals could trespass and cause damage to your property.
It’s the cheapest addition to your home security you’ll ever have, and one of the most effective as well.
9. Alloet Desktop-Sized Solar Powered Wind Turbine Model
Last but not least, this nifty little desktop gadget looks fantastic and gives a little bit of function as well. If you have employees that bring their children to the office when they need to talk to you, or you work from home and your kids come in from time to time, they’ll be able to have fun with this while you attend to more serious matters.
Utilizing four small solar panels on each side of the 45° angle sloped stand, a battery in the bottom controls an actual turbine that spins, forcing the windmill blades on the top of the model to spin as well.
This is made almost entirely of ABS plastic, so it’s durable enough to be used when you’re bored on a conference call. The solar panels aren’t the most energy efficient, but they get the job done so long as you use this sparingly.
Solar Power in Every Corner
The list doesn’t stop here. Solar power is being used in thousands of smaller applications across multiple fields. Now that panels have become much more efficient, it’s viable to use solar power for tough jobs and maintain a fairly consistent battery reserve in your solar-powered gadgets.
