Update? been 4 weeks …
I see the trademark in March, implies a product range.
https://www.trademarkia.com/company-anker-innovations-limited-4861959-page-1-2
Coming Soon: PowerCore Solar 10000!
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Good find, thanks for sharing,
Its more like… Anker started audio products with SoundCore… the products clicked, runaway success, and it became a separate product entity… Soundcore
similarly, PowerConf is becoming another success… may be a year or so, we may hear another brand Powerconf (look at the change from C to c ) … and similarly PowerSolar … also some may be just the various terms used by Anker such as Bass-Up, Voltage Boost,…
There may be some which did not click as much… Zolo …
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I just do not see how Anker can make products which are both reliable (to align with their customer service ethos) and are solar and involve batteries (which hate heat). You’d be needing to revise the entire product line into an any-DC.
But for sure, solar is going to be a major part of planet-wide success.
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I sincerely hope they don’t do that. If they do, it would be purely to confuse the customer base and trick people into making extra sales (similarly as they are doing with excess amounts of various products).
It’s very unethical, and I strongly disapprove.
Also the PowerConf only has 203 reviews on amazon, so I would be SHOCKED if it became its own brand.
Might be Anker is eyeing to get into the Solar Plus Battery kind of ventures ( not to the scale of what Tesla is doing, still possible … ) more of consumers for emergency backup and camping / charging with their already PowerHouse and Solar Portable panels, may be improved technology.
These are just assumptions based on what we have seen so far…
Though there may be only 203 reviews but it is Anker’s foray into Business speakers.
- Soundcore Brand is more fun, for music lovers
- Powerconf Brand may be more for Business Speakers (or may be a sip line phone or more)
With more and more work from home users, this trend is here to stay… and the powerconf kind of conference speaker, it really takes that extra pain off your ears for long meetings.
I have not used phone (softphone) headsets for past couple of weeks since I got PowerConf, and only using it for all conference meetings, calls on WebEx zoom goto meeting, Slack, more
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I can’t tell if it’s you or Anker that’s getting carried away 
Maybe both!
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May be… 
On a side note… PowerConf better be under Anker… Else one more community to attend to in future 
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The more products the more confusion.
The more splitted companies the more confusion.
The more…
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I’m more interested in the technology, the innovation, either a newer better or at least a cost reduction.
The two breakthroughs of solar and nuclear fusion, then feeds into nanotechnology then we’re gods.
If you can bring solar down in cost so it becomes embedded in most items, we only need to capture a tiny fraction of the sun energy which hits the earth and it’s then nearer free energy, but not reliable. If you then top it up with nuclear fusion reactors you then have cheap and reliable and safe energy.
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I’m picturing Doc Browns Delorean with Mr Fusion and Solar Panels.
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Im with @professor on this one… solar and lithium batteries don’t mix unless you’ve managed to crack solid state batteries…
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They can mix these better if they:
- selected a standard port, like a typical 12V barrel.
- let whatever voltage the solar panels wanted to output, so would vary 2V to 12V depending on sunshine
- make a Powercore which took the variable output of the solar panel and converted it to the internal cell’s required voltage, typically 3.7V although it would be most efficient to make it 7.8V
- USB PD output of the Powercore.
- a generic cable between these to allow a 3ft-9ft distance. This lets the Powercore be in shade
- make the Powercore IP rated to handle damp surfaces, light passing showers.
- offer a range of Powercore to suit capacity, budget, weight uses. Some could offer pass thru.
- offer a range of solar panels, 2, 3, 6 panels. Make them use the same input and output barrel connector so you can daisy chain multiple to aggregate power collection.
- offer one cable which did USB PD directly to allow not using Powercore for lightweight scenarios.
I believe they already planned this for the Powerhouse so just extending into simpler DC as most don’t need AC.
It would be very cheap to make the only part expensive would be the DC-DC boost converter to handle a range of input and convert to cells voltage. That is well within Anker’s capability, but it would add, say, $5 to the electronics costs.
The solar panels would be likely OEM branded and use generic current solar technology, like they did with the 21W and 15W one they sold/sell.
Then as these are all my ideas, pay me in sending me a set of the products to test.
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Well you’d actually have a few Fusion reactors near the sea coasts as they use sea water as fuel (heavy hydrogen, deuterium from heavy water) and these are more efficient if larger. Extremely safe as if anything goes wrong they simply stop working.
Solid state batteries store energy for cars, bikes, etc.
Solar is done using very large arrays in the low population desert areas in each continent and then pumped to the population areas.
So the car would be a traditional electric car, just with better batteries. Sorry no Deloreon.
The only thing stopping us are the vested interests in expensive fuel.
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Yep, unless the oil companies, and countries, start to run out, clean environmentally friendly sources of power will never become significant or cheaper to the consumer.
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Came across an ad on youtube today… Actually showing up a lot… Very similar to PowerSolar and has quite a lot of interesting features…
Would love to see Anker match and beat its features in the same form factor
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Until there is a battery technology improvement I’ll stick with the view all items with batteries you cannot replace must be an item you can use daily, pocketable, low cost. There’s plenty of low cost items you can put in a battery device like a $3 Qi loop, or a speaker.
But until such battery technology improvement then items like this will sit unused and die as a wasted investment.
Break this product weaknesses down:
- price $110. This product as it has multiple sources of heat (sun, wireless, light) will age fast if used. I cannot see a warranty. I don’t see mention of any of life extension battery technology. I’d expect this if used regularly to die in a year to 2 years.
- weight. Larger items get used less.
- light. Plenty of flashlights are a good idea, they are with you more often because they are small, pocketable. This unit will barely ever with you when there’s a use for it.
- solar, those cells are so small it will suffer from fake charging, the voltage is high enough to light up an LED but not enough to charge cells, unless you place in strong sunshine for a long time and so age the cells. These small panels in less than ideal conditions either have too low a voltage to charge cells or if you run it through a boost converter the energy loss of the conversion exceeds the energy from the sun. So it doesn’t actually work most of the time. Link below to prove the problem.
- a cell in the sun performs less well, see below.
- you’d be better getting the separate components of a larger solar panel you carry when off-grid in sunny times, and a flashlight you carry most times, and a portable charger. The portable charger would get used more as smaller and when it does a few years later you buy another and the solar panel is still working.
These 3 separate products could be made better, the DC-DC in the solar panel and the DC-DC in the Powercore together lose energy, if there was a solar compatibility between these products then they’d work more efficiently when connected.
Link to how fake charging happens.
Watch at 5m28s.
Electronics explained:
- to charge cells you feed them a voltage a little higher than their current voltage, typically empty cell 3.6V rising to 4.2V charged.
- in strong sunshine you can get 5V.
- in weak sunshine you don’t, may be 1V.
- So in weak sunshine you must pass the voltage through a boost converter, these raise the voltage and lower the current. The boost converter is not efficient and consume energy. So there is a minimum solar energy where the boost process needs more than input and won’t work. This state of too little energy to work happen more on smaller solar panels, so they’re useless most of the time. Observe in the video how a 2/3rds sized panel produces 1/6th the output because of the fixed cost of boost converter.
- but an LED is not a converter, you can connect one right off solar panel and it will light up , so in a typical solar battery combo you see the LED and think it’s charging but it isn’t. Fake charging.
Example illustration of a boost converter efficiency, observe it nosedives at lower voltage and higher voltage and is best when close to cell voltage. This is where I see the Anker opportunity, don’t do two DC conversion which in weak sunshine gives no energy, align the electronics to do it once.
Observe how the powerbanks when in sunshine worked half as good, it’s because heat makes cells slower.
The example competitor product shows exactly the problem
They show how the LED comes on but it doesn’t charge, what is happening is the heat of sun is interering with the charging chemistry, slowing recharge and accelerating ageing.
Really, consider buying these combo items a lesson in chemistry and electronics or ignore and be poorer and wiser later.
So now I explained it, it can never be my fault for the future regret of buying such combo products at this time.
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Thank you @professor for the details mentioned here
We know about these issues because you explained it here…
But people watching the ads on youtube or other platforms will not know much and just go for it… (I would not buy one more… have one and not using it)
Of everything, I liked the lighting part… May be just have it without the solar cells…
Interesting to see what the PowerSolar brings on table.
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I dont see it.
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