A Silly-Looking Yet Surprisingly Practical Solar Panel Sun Hat

Picture the scene, you’re lost in the woods, your phone is dead, the wind is chilling you through to the bones. In the distance you can hear a pack of wolves howling. Vultures are circling overhead. The bright sun is casting shadows from the carrion birds onto the ground. Those shadows are surrounding you just as the vultures and wolves are. This may be it…

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But it isn’t your time to expire. Luckily you’re wearing your trusty EcoFlow PowerHat. Rifling through your back pocket, you pull out a frayed USB-C cable. Your cat seems to have been gnawing on it again. Under your breath you mutter various curses towards Professor Tiddlywinks, your arrogant feline housemate, before plugging the tattered wire into your phone and inserting the other end under the brim of your EcoFlow PowerHat ($89 from EcoFlow). Your phone lights up. Salvation.

This may sound a bit silly, but it could happen. And the magic hat in question exists. Please allow me to explain.

Editor’s Note: EcoFlow sent a PowerHat for testing for this review.

Fashion is pretty subjective, and someone out there no doubt finds the PowerHat to be a stylish object capable of enhancing your hiking outfit. But I may be in the majority when I say it looks pretty absurd.

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Outwardly, it’s not too dissimilar for a standard sun hat. Black is a fairly common color for wide brimmed sunhats, and the chinstrap looks to be of good quality. That wide brim will keep those UV rays away from your face, neck, and a good portion of your upper torso. If you want specifics, the hat has “a lab-tested UV penetration rate of 0%” which is the equivalent of SPF 50+. So there’s next to no chance of your noggin roasting with this on.

However, on closer inspection, people will notice the panels. They’ll notice the USB cable dangling from underneath it. They’ll ask “what is that?” not in a curious way, but more in a “this person probably has a two year supply of corned beef and apple juice stashed in his or her basement” kind of way. I’ve seen some strange things on a trail, but this may be a step too far for many members of the general public. At least you won’t look sunburned mind, so there is that.

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The sun hat is also waterproof. Or rather the panels are, while the ports are protected by rubber stoppers. So if you’re caught in a downpour, the electronics should weather the storm just fine. The top of the hat is ventilated though, presumably to stop your scalp sweating. So the hat isn’t waterproofing your head at all.

In terms of power output, ideal circumstances will see the PowerHat pop a maximum of around 12 watts through either a USB Type-C cable or a USB Type-A cable. Or both, though this will split whatever power the hat is producing between those ports. What the ports go to is up to you. You can directly power something like a phone, or a tablet, or you can cram the end of the wire into a power bank and save that electricity for later use. Which may be a sensible thing to do if it’s a sunny day but your devices are all charged at that particular moment. It isn’t anywhere near enough to power a laptop, or supercharge a phone, but most small devices will happily take a charge from it at a reasonable rate.

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There is no on board power storage built into the hat, which may be a sensible thing. While batteries are pretty safe these days, bad things can still happen. So a charging power bank is better off stored in your bag, or a pocket at least, instead of dangling right in front of your eyeball.

It’s worth noting that the full 12-watts (or just over that in ideal circumstances) is only produced when the hat is in direct sunlight, pointing at an optimal angle, on a clear, sunny, day. If you’re hiking through woodland, or it’s all a bit cloudy. Or the sun has dipped out behind a mountain you’re not going to get maximum power output from your panels. There’s also a good chance your head won’t be at an optimal angle unless it’s noon in the middle of summer. So some panels may miss out when you’re on the move.

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Solar panels don’t actually need direct sunlight to work. They’ll actually provide power in the shade, though the power they provide will be fairly limited. The less sun there is, the less power you’ll get, and electric light like you find indoors won’t produce any notable amount of current. Unsurprisingly, it’s also essentially useless at night.

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So if this hat is your backup plan, and there’s a chance you’ll run out of phone battery during your little adventure, don’t leave things too late. Put your likely signal-free device in airplane mode, or turn it off while there’s still plenty of light left. Plug it into the hat (as this is a little more efficient than charging a power bank then using that to charge a phone) and get as much juice into your device as early as you possibly can.

Some satellite phones (the emergency devices you actually want to have in the middle of nowhere) can be charged by USB too. And I have personally had phones run out of charge while out in the woods. So as silly and farfetched as it sounds, the chances of this daft little sun hat actually saving someone’s life isn’t the most farfetched thing in the world.

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While this may seem like a bit of a gimmick, and an expensive gimmick at that with a price tag hovering around the $129 mark, it does actually have a genuinely useful purpose. I tested this in the woods at the same time as Bluetti’s Handsfree 2 and stumbled across an actual use case for the PowerHat.

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Sometimes, people go camping with a solar panel. Even smaller solar panels can add a noticeable amount of weight to a pack, and take up physical space in said pack. However, this rests on your head and is barely noticeable when you’re walking around with it. You don’t actually need to be wearing the PowerHat for it to function, in fact it’s likely to be more efficient if you prop it up against a rock so it’s facing the sun and let it fill a power bank that’s conveniently nestled in the shade behind it. Should you not want to wear it, it’s foldable for easy storage and even comes with its own protective pouch.

So it’s basically a pretty practical solar panel that you can take on a light hike or camping trip without worrying about leaving food, or spare clothing, or some other vital bit of equipment out. It started out as something silly, and might deserve a spot on anyone’s camping tech essentials list. You still look pretty daft wearing it though.

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The EcoFlow Powerhat is currently on sale for $89 in the official EcoFlow online store. Or you can purchase the EcoFlow Powerhat from Amazon for around $129.