Customer Reviews

Scosche SolBAT II Solar Powered Backup Battery and Charger for iPods & Other MP3 Players

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(29)

 

 

I had my doubts about how this product would actually work and if it would allow me to charge my Iphone3GS because Apple has made its phone series very picky about chargers. I can safely say that this product charges WITHOUT forcing the popup about being a non-standard charger. The unit itself its quite small and I have it attached to the windshield of my car with the included suction cups. I'm using it to charge up my phone while running the Navigation and Traffic Apps (which really drain the phone). Overall I would rate it 5 stars and I'm considering purchasing another for additional devices that I could carry with me on trips.

Purchased here on Amazon, it charges via the included ipod cable and also has a USB out port for charging anything else that has a USB enabled charger. Charged my droid from 30% to 100% in about an hour and that was even in cloudy conditions. Status lights show when it is receiving enough light to create charge and another status light shows when it is charging the connected device. It will even hold a charge like a battery so you can leave it in the sun to charge up then bring it in and connect it to your device. I may buy another!

I first bought the Tenergy USB-500 Hybrid, but my Iphone 3GS didn't like it so I decided to try this one. It arrived fully charged so I hooked it up to my Iphone and everything worked as planned. Then I recharged the SolBAT via the USB connection at it charged up to 4 lights pretty quickly. I then used it to charge my Iphone and got about a 40% boost before the SolBAT went dark. That was less then I expected. My next test was to charge it strictly via solar. I mounted it on my dashboard and waited for it to hit 4 lights......that was over 2 weeks ago. It never made it past 3 lights and that was after a 2 week period with at least 9 days of good to full sun. Well, I found myself in a real world situation and I figured 3 lights was 75% charged so it should give me at least a 15% boost, so I hooked it up to my Iphone. I checked back 5 to 7 minutes later to make sure all was well only to find that the SolBAT had been drained completely and my Iphone got a whopping 3% boost. So it's pretty useless as a solar device. My next thought was to use my original Tenergy charger to charge this one, but of course this SolBAT can only be charged with it's own very specific cable....which I now have to find. So it may be that this solar device may only really work as an "off grid" device when charged by ANOTHER solar device.....oh the irony! Seriously, I want to believe in solar but this first venture has only reinforced my suspicions that it's all hype.

Once set up, this charger is great to have around. I bike and camp a lot and it's great to have a charger that doesn't need electricity. But, as another reviewer pointed out, the instructions for this charger are very unclear. Some chargers (not solar powered) indicate the amount of charge left. With this charger, there is no way to know whether the it's fully charged or almost out. The only way to tell it's charged is that the "charge in" light goes out when plugged in or in sunlight. Definitely take the advice of another reviewer and start out by fully charging this through the USB connection. I think it's best use is to have it in constant sunlight during the day (hooked on your bike or backpack) then charge your ipod/iphone ect. overnight. But once you figure out it's idiosyncrasies, and if your activities take you away from electricity for hours/days at a time, it's really useful.

This was great the first four times I used it. It allowed me to charge the battery on my iPhone 3gs from 20 % to 85%. The bummer is that it only did this four times before it has completely died. It no longer takes a charge via solar cell nor via the charge cord.

I bought two of these, loving the idea of them, and neither of them worked with any of our various cell phones. They seemed to charge up all right but would not then charge any of our cell phones! A big disappointment and a total waste of money!

Bought this thinking that I can charge my iPhone 3G on the go. You can as long as it's fully charged cause when it's not, it'll take 4 days to fully recharge via solar. Not what I was expecting. If you're able to recharge this via the USB cable, then it's ok cause it'll give about 70% of my battery back to my iPhone when it was depleted.

The lights that tell you how much it's been charged is a little misleading. In less then 30 minutes connected to my computer via the USB cable, the 4th light is on (which I thought was fully charged) when in fact it hasn't been fully charged. Learned this when I went to charge my iPhone only to realized it gave me about 30% charge. It takes a good 3+ hours for it to be fully charged.

If I had known that the solar charging would take so long to recharge, I would have looked elsewhere. But I guess, for the price it isn't so bad.

So, if you're looking to get this, just be aware of the following:

- It takes 4 days of continuous sun light to recharge.
- It takes 3+ hours to be fully charged via USB to computer
- It only gives about 70-75% of battery life back to a 3G iPhone

I purchased this charger so that I could have an extra battery to charge my iPod touch 2g when I needed that I could also charge by solar power, but I was quite disappointed with it. After charging it completely through USB I tried it out and it charged my iPod for about 5 minutes, then stopped charging. If I unplugged the charger and replugged it back in, it would continue charging and I would constantly have to remove the usb and replug it in. It was a nice device but that fact that I constantly had to unplug and replug the charger constantly was very annoying. I'm not sure if my device was defective or all act like this, but I do not recommend this device unless it is necessary to have a accessible solar panel. Sometimes, the led battery indicator would fail to work too, but that was not the biggest problem. In the end I returned it because the problems were very disruptive and made using the product difficult. This device is a nice idea, but it has too many problems.

The unit combines a solar panel with a rechargeable battery. The battery can of course be charged in sunlight (although slowly; it is a very small panel), but also comes with a cable to charge it via USB. The end that goes into the SolBAT is a micro-USB; the other end is standard USB that can go into any USB charger (such as an iPhone's USB charger). So you can charge it up by USB at home and then take it with you as a backup battery. There is an indicator light to show that the SolBAT is getting charged (either via sun or USB), a light to show when it is charging your device, as well as four smaller lights showing the charge level of the battery.

Incidentally, you can use the Scosche Keychain USB 2.0 for all BlackBerry models flipSYNK (Black) (which has mini- and micro-USB on one end and regular USB on the other) instead of the included cable to charge up the SolBAT.

To test, I drained my iPhone 3GS to 50% and connected it to the fully-charged SolBAT using the Scosche flipSYNK USB 2.0 Cable for iPod and iPhone (black). Within two hours the iPhone was at 100% and the SolBAT had only dropped from a full 4 lights to 3 lights. Note that, unlike some backup batteries, the SolBAT does not need to stay connected while you use the iPhone (or whatever); it actually charges the iPhone's own battery.

Note that the SolBAT does not plug directly into the dock connector, but uses a dock connector USB cable, so it works with the iPhone in a case (assuming your case has a cutout).

Comes with a suction-cup mounted cradle for attaching to a window or car windshield and a carabiner for attaching to a backpack, vel sim.

The SolBAT II and one or both of the FlipSYNKs make a very nice compact charging solution for an iPhone or other USB device.

Before you fork out to Scosche, you should know that the solBAT takes between four to five days to charge up fully under sunlight, not ideal for most power-hungry smartphones nowadays.