JOOS Orange Waterproof Solar Panel & Battery

Get your smartphone off the grid for good with the JOOS Orange Solar. The JOOS Orange is a 1.5lb solar panel with an integrated 20W/5,400mAh replaceable internal battery, and 8 bit microprocessor that regulates the power coming in and going out. In detail, direct, unobstructed sunlight, it is capable of producing power faster than your iPhone can use it up. It's what I call "fighting a winning battle." Many portable solar panels made today are attached to batteries with similar capacities as the JOOS Orange. All in all, their solar panels are typically very small and do not generate power faster than your iPhone uses it. They are fighting a losing battle. They are great for emergencies, however they can't keep your phone going forever. Most can't get you any more at that time a couple full charges, if your lucky, earlier they run out of juice, and that's if they are in the sun all day.

The JOOS Orange in a variety of scenarios

I tested the JOOS Orange in a variety of scenarios and lighting conditions and found that the claim by the manufacturer of a recharge time of 12 hours in direct sunlight is fairly accurate. In other words if you continue to keep it angled perfectly at the sun throughout a very bright day. This, unfortunately, is not how every day is around the world. Conclusively, I conducted furthermore testing in mixed lighting conditions including: rain, shade, overcast skies, behind house windows, behind car windows, and indoor artificial lighting. These combined conditions took 36 hours to charge it from empty to full. This is a much more realistic scenario.

Finding out how many times I could charge an iPhone 4 strictly from the internal 20W/5,400mAh battery was at once on my list. I left the JOOS Orange face down to avoid it being trickle charged by any ambient light. I was able to keep my iPhone running for 4 days while this test. In that time, I was able to charge my iPhone from 0% to 100% a little over two times. This is on par with results I have had during reviewing various other backup battery systems with similarly sized battery capacities. The main difference between those other batteries and the JOOS Orange is that they didn't have such a sophisticated, efficient and rugged solar panel, or one at all in this connection.

My testing as well entailed running my iPhone 4 solely from the JOOS Orange for 8 days straight during heavily utilizing my iPhone and keeping the JOOS Orange outside near all day and night. In that time, the lighting conditions varied heavily from 5 days of bright sunshine to 3 dark, rainy days. Each day I used the iPhone for several hours of online browsing as so then as multiple phone and/or VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) calls. Every other day I utilized a GPS app for about 30 minutes. At the end of the third day of rain, the JOOS Orange was down to 20% even with my iPhone charging from it multiple times each day. At the end of each sunny day, the battery capacity was between 80%-100% even afterwards charging up my iPhone 1-2 times before that day. I found this to be astonishing. This meant that I would be able to keep my iPhone fully charged on camping trips as long as I for the time being had one day of sunshine every 4 days.

Two amazing stories I found about the JOOS Orange surviving extreme situations in effect impressed me. The first is from the review done by WIRED Magazine in which it was accidentally dropped from and run over by a motorcycle and survived. The second is furthermore extraordinary. The manufacturer of the JOOS Orange to tell the truth shot it with a .22 rifle 5 times and it was after all able to charge an iPhone. This bullet test was captured on video, and I posted it with this review. You can find the video nearly the top of the review, along the left side, below the main photo and slideshow photos.

To sum things up, I believe, in this class of solar panel, this is the one to beat on the market today. Not one competing solar panel that I have read about, seen, or tested has come close to the high level of durability and performance that the JOOS Orange provides. Its miniscule drawbacks are heavily outweighed by it phenomenal advantages. The ability to maintain its efficiency without having to resort to utilizing much larger, harder-to-carry panels is leaps and bounds ahead of the competition. You will be hard pressed to find another solar panel on the market that can survive being fully submerged, dropped onto concrete, shot five times with a .22 and at the time still be able to charge up your iPhone. The JOOS Orange solar panel in effect should be packaged with scuba gear, Kevlar bulletproof vest and a full-face helmet because it can survive a lot more than you can. I highly recommend the JOOS Orange for anyone going on an adventure in the backcountry or out on the open seas and want to be able to charge your USB powered cellphone, GPS & walkie-talkies.