{"id":28930,"date":"2025-10-18T14:03:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T14:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=28930"},"modified":"2025-10-18T14:03:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T14:03:16","slug":"this-solar-powered-hat-was-a-functional-and-fashionable-flop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=28930","title":{"rendered":"This Solar Powered Hat Was a Functional and Fashionable Flop"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<br \/>     <span class=\"c-shortcodeImage_caption g-inner-spacing-right-small g-text-xxsmall\"><\/p>\n<p>Me wearing the hat with the cable running to a power bank. <\/p>\n<p><\/span> <span class=\"c-shortcodeImage_credit g-inner-spacing-right-small g-outer-spacing-top-xsmall g-color-text-meta g-text-xxxsmall\">Richard Baguely\/Zooey Liao\/ CNET<\/span> <\/p>\n<p class=\"u-speakableText-p1\">Like many middle-aged men, I have a big solar-powered area on the top of my head: It\u2019s called a bald spot. If I work in the yard for too long, it turns very red and glows at night. So, I wear a hat but all of that lovely solar energy reflecting off my dome goes to waste &#8212; or it did until I tried the  $129 <span class=\"c-shortcodeCommerceLink\">EcoFlow Power Hat (currently $99 on sale)<\/span>, a new combination sun hat\/solar power source.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"u-speakableText-p2\">The EcoFlow Power Hat features eight solar panels that feed into two USB ports (one USB-A and one USB-C) in a small box with a tiny LED under the back rim. While it adequately protected my bald spot, it failed to charge my phone in any meaningful way. Plus, it\u2019s just a damn ugly hat.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"6027b699-63fa-4ac8-bb00-6489201db36b\" data-ng-block=\"{\">Pros<\/h3>\n<ul data-ng-block=\"{\" id=\"\">\n<li>Covers my head, adequately doing the job of a hat<\/li>\n<li>Can technically trickle charge a phone, so I guess it works<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 id=\"5fc13521-798d-45a7-9ed4-f91ccaf82df3\" data-ng-block=\"{\">Cons<\/h3>\n<ul data-ng-block=\"{\" id=\"\">\n<li>Very low charging rate at just 5 watts of power<\/li>\n<li>Needs a cable running down your back<\/li>\n<li>Design will only appeal to Wicked cosplayers (it&#8217;s ugly)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Don&#8217;t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add <\/em>CNET<em> as a preferred Google source on Chrome.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"4184a524-0e30-4ab8-9fa8-ee5ba054e900\" data-ng-block=\"{\" data-id=\"4184a524-0e30-4ab8-9fa8-ee5ba054e900\">Design: The least attractive hat I\u2019ve ever worn\u00a0<\/h2>\n<p>     <span class=\"c-shortcodeImage_caption g-inner-spacing-right-small g-text-xxsmall\"><\/p>\n<p>There are eight tiny solar panels in the brim, but unless the sun is hitting them just right, you&#8217;re not going to get much power out of them.<\/p>\n<p><\/span> <span class=\"c-shortcodeImage_credit g-inner-spacing-right-small g-outer-spacing-top-xsmall g-color-text-meta g-text-xxxsmall\">Richard Baguely\/Zooey Liao\/CNET<\/span><\/p>\n<p>If I wasn&#8217;t already clear: This is a truly ugly hat. Sun hats are not generally stylish but this thing looks like a melted flower pot or like a giant version of one of those awful flower pot holders made from vinyl records. I\u2019m no fashionista but the Oasis reunion made bucket hats cool again and wider-brimmed hats like the Tilley TS1 keep the sun off without looking like you\u2019ve been whacked, Wile E. Coyote style, by a falling satellite dish. I\u2019m a big fan of practicality over style, but there are limits, especially as it\u2019s not very practical.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"4184a524-0e30-4ab8-9fa8-ee5ba054e900\" data-ng-block=\"{\">Not easy to clean or wear<\/h3>\n<p>All of the electronics in the hat mean that you can\u2019t wash it. When my baseball cap gets grubby, sweaty and covered in the soil of hard labor, I can throw it in the wash. Try that with the EcoFlow Power Hat and you\u2019ll destroy it. You also need to have a cable connecting the hat to the phone, which isn\u2019t very practical when you are trying to dig out weeds. I ended up running a cable down the back of my shirt, which just made the whole thing look even more foolish.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"4184a524-0e30-4ab8-9fa8-ee5ba054e900\" data-ng-block=\"{\" data-id=\"4184a524-0e30-4ab8-9fa8-ee5ba054e900\">Charging: Can\u2019t really charge anything worth using  <\/h2>\n<p>     <span class=\"c-shortcodeImage_caption g-inner-spacing-right-small g-text-xxsmall\"><\/p>\n<p>A six-hour gardening session barely moved the needle in charging my devices. <\/p>\n<p><\/span> <span class=\"c-shortcodeImage_credit g-inner-spacing-right-small g-outer-spacing-top-xsmall g-color-text-meta g-text-xxxsmall\">Richard Baguely\/Zooey Liao\/ CNET<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The problem is how solar power works. Light from the sun hits a solar panel, which converts it into electrical energy. That\u2019s called the photoelectric effect, first explained by Albert Einstein, who won the Nobel Prize for figuring it out in 1921. The amount of energy depends on the size of the panel and how much light hits it. That, in turn, depends on how the panel is positioned relative to the sun.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why the solar panels on your roof are tilted south to face the sun. The EcoFlow Power Hat features eight small solar panels positioned around its large brim. That means that most aren\u2019t getting much, or any, direct light unless the sun is directly overhead. The sun has an annoying habit of rising and falling, so most of the time, you\u2019re not getting a consistent amount of direct sunlight.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>What does all that mean in practical terms? It means this solar hat doesn\u2019t work very well. I tested the hat in the full midday sun in my yard near Boston and found that, at best, it generated about 5 watts of power; that&#8217;s not a lot. It generated 5 volts on the USB port, but the current flow never exceeded 1 amp, meaning it was still only generating about 5 watts of power. In the morning or afternoon, when the sun was at a certain angle, the current generated fell to less than 0.3 amps, approximately 2 watts. EcoFlow claims it can generate up to 12 watts but I never managed anything near that.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"4184a524-0e30-4ab8-9fa8-ee5ba054e900\" data-ng-block=\"{\">100 hours to charge an iPhone 17 Pro\u00a0<\/h3>\n<p>To test it further, I conducted an arduous gardening session. Well, okay, I stuck it on a pole, connected it to a <span section=\"shortcodeLink\"><span>hefty portable power bank<\/span><\/span> and watched from the deck to make sure my local groundhog (we call him Wilbur the Whistle Pig) didn\u2019t steal it. After six hours of this backbreaking work, the charge level had increased by 9%, representing about 225 mAh of stored charge. That\u2019s about 5% of the capacity of an iPhone 17 Pro, so this hat would take about 100 hours to charge the phone. That\u2019s assuming the phone is not running at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>     <span class=\"c-shortcodeImage_caption g-inner-spacing-right-small g-text-xxsmall\"><\/p>\n<p>The Power Hat needs 100 hours to charge an iPhone 17 Pro, if the phone is off. <\/p>\n<p><\/span> <span class=\"c-shortcodeImage_credit g-inner-spacing-right-small g-outer-spacing-top-xsmall g-color-text-meta g-text-xxxsmall\">Richard Baguely\/Zooey Liao\/CNET<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"4184a524-0e30-4ab8-9fa8-ee5ba054e900\" data-ng-block=\"{\" data-id=\"4184a524-0e30-4ab8-9fa8-ee5ba054e900\">Specs<\/h2>\n<ul data-ng-block=\"{\" id=\"\">\n<li>Two sizes: Medium-Large (56-58 centimeters) and Large-XL (59-61 centimeters)\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Dual USB-A and USB-C ports for charging two devices simultaneously.<\/li>\n<li>Has eight tiny solar panels on the brim.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>UPF 50+, sun and UV protection<\/li>\n<li>Claims 24% thermal-to-electricity conversion and up to 12 watts of power; tested to just 5 watts\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>IP65 waterproof and dustproof-rated<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 id=\"4184a524-0e30-4ab8-9fa8-ee5ba054e900\" data-ng-block=\"{\" data-id=\"4184a524-0e30-4ab8-9fa8-ee5ba054e900\">Buying advice: Skip, there are better hats and better solar charging options out there<\/h2>\n<p>Many of the products I test end up being a case of a great idea but poor execution. The practicalities of manufacturing products and the compromises of real-world engineering often undermine the intended purpose of the product. However, at $129 full price or $99 on sale if you <span class=\"c-shortcodeCommerceLink\">buy direct from EcoFlow<\/span>, EcoFlow Power Hat is one of the rare exceptions that is a bad idea with bad execution.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s ugly and has solar panels that are too small to be effective for, well, anything. It might be better if they went with a <span class=\"c-shortcodeCommerceLink\">flat cap design<\/span>, or a <span class=\"c-shortcodeCommerceLink\">sahara <\/span>or <span class=\"c-shortcodeCommerceLink\">hiking hat design<\/span> with the solar panels on the top or neck flap instead. It\u2019s also an inferior solution to simply getting a<span section=\"shortcodeLink\"><span> fast and compact portable charger<\/span><\/span>, like the <span class=\"c-shortcodeCommerceLink\">InfinityLab InstaGo 5000<\/span> or <span class=\"c-shortcodeCommerceLink\">Anker 523 PowerCore Slim 10K PD<\/span>. Another alternative is using a larger <span section=\"shortcodeLink\"><span>portable solar panel<\/span><\/span>, which you can pair with <span section=\"shortcodeLink\"><span>a power station<\/span><\/span> or attach to your backpack as you hike to charge your devices, as with the <span section=\"shortcodeLink\"><span>Bluetti Handsfree 2.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>All of these options will provide you with more power than the EcoFlow Solar Hat, and they\u2019ll do it better and faster. So keep the solar panels off your head and <span section=\"shortcodeLink\"><span>stick \u2018em on your roof instead<\/span><\/span>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Me wearing the hat with the cable running to a power bank. Richard Baguely\/Zooey Liao\/ CNET Like many middle-aged men, I have a big solar-powered area on the top of my head: It\u2019s called a bald spot. If I work in the yard for too long, it turns very red and glows at night. So,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[17138,4947,17137,16819,8066,1887],"class_list":{"0":"post-28930","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-fashionable","9":"tag-flop","10":"tag-functional","11":"tag-hat","12":"tag-powered","13":"tag-solar"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}