And one from the garden with the kids. W
We spend most of our time planting and harvesting in the summer. It’s a good chance to hang out with them and have them learn a thing or two. We also have 12 chickens!
Introducing: Our Brand New Bluetooth Speakers
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That must be cool, we can’t really do that out here in the city, trust me, my family tried. The last chick we had lasted about 3 months before she was killed by a stray cat that stole her head…
Lovely. It’s nearly dark here in California but you can hint at the palm tree and orange tree in my garden. I spend most of my time outdoors so I tend to pick devices which can handle it.
I was under the impression you lived in the UK???
@nigelhealy is an international man of mystery
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I live everywhere. I’m a bot remember?
No seriously, I’m in UK next week, last week I was in Colorado, week before I was in Texas. Currently California.
Anker is a wonderful answer for me, when I pair with the devices, to live out of the tiniest amount of luggage. This is my usual luggage, this includes laptop, change of clothes, etc. I usually travel with a 10" tablet with keyboard and there’s always some kind of Anker in there (Powerport, Powercore)
I have been doing this method of existence for so long I don’t now realize (realise) how beneficial it is til I come across others who seem to physically tied by the weight of the objects. Last week for example I saw an online post from an old colleague, we exhanged messages and we were a few blocks from each other and I walked over from my hotel (which is trivial when so little luggage) and yet others went straight into office with their huge luggage.
(its 16L)
The others in their pre-Anker existence, if they just looked behind.
What do you do that you travel so much if you don’t mind my asking. Sounds fun!
I’m going to be highly upset if when I wake up, the comments are past 600. But oh well. So night people!!
Or morning to some of yous too!
Another one bites the dust! Goodnight pal
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Tech worker. But really, just keeping everything small and light just makes everything easier. Anker is a part of that.
With Anker I can:
- sit in the lounge til the aircraft doors about to close, as I do not need to worry about overhead bin space. (sorry no Anker in this shot)
- I live mostly outdoors
- I don’t really need to worry about power. I measure everything so there are fewer surprises.
- (back to thread) If the power goes out, like a proper Father I ensure none need suffer in the dark:
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Nice thanks for that
So are you also Schmukler_Kiddos?
It would be super nice to get my stepdad his own speaker cause he is always asking to borrow my Anker Bluetooth speaker that I got during the Christmas give away plus I’m digging the soundcore pro speaker for my stepdad and me
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I looked into solar backpacks but every calculation suggests get a proper backpack and a proper solar panel and a proper battery.
Some of my fave brands and products died, such as GoLite which is my 40L and 50L backpacks, I use a Black Diamond 16L.
The Anker solar panels are highly regarded across many reviews but I don’t own as is rarely discounted. My go-to battery would be the Anker Powercore 10000 as its a very dense (mah/volune, mah/weight) and I find of all similar-cost brands that Anker’s stuff fails the least often.
I pond-hop across USA and UK with my house on my back, and the issue is one often has too-much of one thing - like too much rain one day and too much sun another day, so when camping when weather is awful I’ll just stay in my tent and watch a lot of videos, and weather is good spend a lot of time moving. That has tended to mean I prefer to use a bigger solar panel (agree with your view of a 21W is better) to make good use of the sunny days and then carry through off batteries for wet / dull days. The whole energy density of both portable batteries and solar has improved enormously the last 20 years.
I have made more useful progress with picking a phone for camping than in making the camping equipment fit the phone - I keep coming back to my Moto G4 Play phone - it lasts 2 days on the same usage as say my other phone (OnePlus3T) lasts 1 day. Part of that is screen size, but also its a low-cost weaker processor which drains less. But you don’t need much phone performance sat in a tent.
The last tweak I have done this few months is very minor, I now use the Anker LC40 torch, accepting it is not rechargeable, and a tiny 18650 USB charger, overall I find this lighter than the Anker LC90 / 130 options. The LC40 is overkill for most situations as once eyes are dark adjusted the automatic backlight off say your wristwatch can light up a mountain, but my LC40 is more for the emergency situations like if I got lost and had to hike in the dark (which has never happened but could) and then want a high definition bright light to see everywhere my foot will go as well as to navigate.
My preferred tent is the Tarptent Notch, with a little tweaking it is stormproof.
Given how much Anker’fied I am now, it is amusing to think back to what I was doing in the past, my Moto G4 Play and its Anker Powercore 10000, it’s equivalent say 6 years ago was:
Here is my tent
Everything I do is human size, self-powered (as much as possible) so its backpack, walk / bike type. When the grim reaper eventually claims me I’ll have (by estimate) traveled via my own legs about 40 times around the planet, then add the flights ontop is probably 100 times around the planet.
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So as most of you are just spamming and counting comments, I’ll just have a try in the middle of somewhere and hoping for rule 2 
In Germany Father’s day has already been on 25th May. Hence I’m not spoiling if I tell you that my dad got a shirt saying “If dad can’t fix it, we’re lost…”. I think that perfectly describes him 
And as he “only” has three daughters we definitely need a man who’s able to repair everything and to change a tire and all that stuff… 
But now back to the SoundCores 
As my dad is non-competitive I’m trying to get one for myself 
Well… and for all my friends that regularly complain about the bad sound in my little student’s flat 
I’d LOVE to get the SoundCore Boost but the SoundCore2 and SoundCore Pro sound awesome too. (But the latter is unfortunately unwinnable in Germany).
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Sounds like the life many of us wish we could have.
Did dad never teach you to change your own tires? Not many women know how to do things of that nature. My wif ebeing one of them until this year where she learned not by choice, to change her own tire with me guiding her on the phone of course. If she can do it, any woman can! 
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Anyone want to have a conversation to get me to 400
This would go perfect on the deck where my dad pretty much lives during the spring and summer! It’s a win win situation!
@nigelhealy I couldn’t agree more. This backpack I’ve been using for 2 years was my first foray into solar:
It’s only 3w so it takes a long time to charge anything. That battery is 5000 mAh and it takes about two days to charge, which is fine because I can charge my phone and headphones fully without it being fully charged. The backpack is 30l, but I wouldn’t actually use it for hiking. It spends most of its days sitting in the sun charging batteries, so it’s not really useful as a day pack - it just doesn’t charge well while you’re carrying it. I can take it on rafts and such, though:
My daily work and travel kit is much smaller:
That’s an 11 inch MAcbook Air, iPad, and a bunch of dongles and connectors (I work in higher ed A/V and instructional design so I need a bunch of weird stuff). If I need to take the solar pack somewhere I can easily fit this whole thing inside the main pocket with room to spare, but when I travel I bring only this bag and a small rollaway suitcase. It’s all pretty lightweight and easy to manage. I tend to bring about 10,000 mAh of battery with me, in two 5000 mAh Astros (charged with solar of course). For most trips that will tide me over, with the exception of the laptop and iPad. Those things are power hogs.
When camping, it’s usually just the solar pack a 30l drybag. This pic was from a river trip so I packed a lot heavier due to having a boat, but it’s a pretty standard deal:
In an ideal world, I camp only in a hammock and a tarp. this hammock has a net over it but it isn’t set up in this picture:
One of my goals is to do a trip through the bob Marshall on a pack raft with only a hammock and tarp and that 30l drybag. We’ll see if I make it.
Anyway, My ideal setup is definitely that 21w Anker panel with at least 20,000 mAh of storage. Like I said, the backpack was on sale ($30) so i figured I would give it a shot. Now that I have my expectations dialed in I really want just a panel, no backpack.
Truthfully, I’d like to see Anker build a >15w solar panel with 20,000 mAh storage capacity built in. I think a lot of consumers expect to plug their phone straight into the panel and charge, but that’s not realistic. You have to store the power and then have a proper battery deliver it. Anker definitely makes the best batteries.
I also agree about carrying most of your power with you - I embark on any backcountry trip with batteries fully charged and use a solar panel to top them off every day. Most of the time I’ll make it through without needing more than what I carried in, but that breaks down at about 4 days. Especially with the GoPro Hero 3 I use. Those things are terrible on power.
To get back on thread topic, I’ll end this with a kid pic. Those are my kids in the background and a ladybug on our plum tree. We like the ladybugs because they eat the aphids that terrorize our plum leaves 
Happy Father’s day all!
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