Bright idea

One of the things that I like to keep in my Camping/Bail out Bag that some may think is overkill came in handy recently. When the hurricane Isaac hit the Landmass that I live in, known as Mississippi, we were in for some decent storms. We wound up losing power for around 10 hours at my house, and my wife's phone went dead overnight, with no way to charge it. Fortunately, I had a solar USB charger for just such an occasion. About 15 minutes on this little jewel and she had enough juice to get her to a plug at her office.

I nabbed a Cyclops compact solar USB charging device, as they call it. It don't weigh nothing, charges in just about any light you can find, has a 2.8ma lithium ion battery, and comes with a little USB cable and charger. The really great thing about this unit is that you can charge the battery on it during the day, then let it charge a device in the dark. I haven't tried to recharge it by campfire light yet, but it will charge inside from CFL bulbs in my ceiling fan, I can tell you that. I have also charged by putting the unit in the window sill while it was very overcast and rainy outside, and it still worked. If you are up on your solar panel science, and I ain't, the Cyclops has an amorphous solar panel, for what it's worth. I just know the thing works well in crummy light.

Handy-dandy!

The charger is small, about 6x9x1, and is easy to pack and carry. There is an on/off switch, battery level button, and bright blue LED lights to let you know what is going on. It even comes with a clip bracket for mounting on packs or clothing so you can charge while you walk, although I would advise against this while in an area with brush that could damage the solar panel. There is also a couple of suction cup mounts for vehicular use, and industrial Velcro for more permanent mounting options.I have seen solar chargers that were about half the cost of the Cyclops, but they did not have an internal battery. They would do in a pinch, or survival situation, but could not charge a device at night. I hope to be able to conduct field trials with this puppy soon, and report back with average recharge times you can expect for something like a cell phone, etc. The company claims that you can charge up a tablet like an iPad with this joker, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if that were true. I am not sure at this point whether it will charge a device and its' own internal battery at the same time. To be honest, this damn hurricane was the first chance I've really had to fiddle with it since I got it many months ago. I had my BoB out for the storm, and happened to remember the Cyclops, so I kept it out next to my emergency radio the whole time. Glad I did, wound up needing the thing.

View with ports, LEDs, on/off switch and clip bracket.

Point of this long winded speech is that you might want to consider a device like this for your camping, survival, or bail out gear. It can come in handy for all manner of things. While I tend to agree that over the long term something like this won't likely have staying power in a lasting survival situation, as most electronics will become useless more than likely, I'd personally rather have one on me until the human population abandons electronics. You know, in an Armageddon type scenario anyway. End of the world type stuff. Besides, you hardly know you got the thing in your pack, ain't much to it for the handy tool it is. As for me, I'm blown away that we have stuff like this at our disposal. Boggles the mind, when you think about it.

-Owen