With summer just around the corner, I thought I’d feature a cool gadget I found just perfect for the hot and sweaty season.
Today, we’ve got the EcoFlow Power Hat: a wide-brim outdoor hat that doubles as a solar panel, allowing you to keep small devices juiced up while you’re out exploring the world, catching some fish or even at the Cricket stadium, chin-wagging with your mates between sixes.
The hat certainly pushes function over fashion, as it’s not the prettiest hat of the bunch, but it does sport a massive brim that will definitely keep the sun out of your eyes. Each panel is then fitted with small solar panels that provide power to a small box on the rear of the hat, to which you can connect a USB-C or USB-A cable.
Now, the spec sheet specifies that the hat can push out 5 volts at 2.4A, which theoretically means we can get a maximum of 12W out of this bad boy. Nothing to get too excited about, also considering that this would be in the best case scenario. However, this hat does kill two birds with one stone.
A. It offers you great protection from the sun with its wide brim. It also has a ventilated back, meaning you still get some airflow around your head as well. And B, since you’re going to be out in the sun anyway, why not use that to provide a little power to keep your phone charged for GPS tracking, or even top up a camera battery while you’re shooting photos of that Kingfisher on the dam?
It’s also IP65 rated, which means it can even keep water out of your eyes while you’re out checking on some waterfalls.
It’s a practical gadget that just seems to fit so well in an active and outdoor lifestyle. From Hiking, to fishing, to sitting out in the sun with your mates at a braai, things which most of us South African’s do all throughout summer, the EcoFlow Power Hat just seems so useful.
You can currently pick one up from Takealot for R1,299, just in time for the sun to start warming up after winter.
