This iPhone battery case is powered by…the sun?
Get it now!
Sunny Case Review – Never plug your iPhone into socket ever again?
Today we’re going to do a review on the Sunny Solar Power Battery Case. This case comes with solar panels that allow you to charge your iPhone using the Sun! We’ve reviewed other solar powered cases like the ones from Enerplex and Snow Lizard, and we have to say, the Sunny case is the best one so far.
This iPhone case would be ideal for an outdoorsy person as the ability to charge your iPhone while you’re getting to know Mother Nature is very appealing. We even tried to go seven days without charging an iPhone to see if we could ditch the wall outlet permanently!
For our Sunny Case Review, we’ve given this case a score of 4.3 EH’s out of 5. The Sunny Case is not a small accessory, but the solar powered charging is unique, and the 2500mah capacity will allow you break up with your wall socket. Wondering what else we think is awesome for the iPhone 6? Check out our “Best of the Best” post for the iPhone 6(s+)!
Get it now!
Design – Big, bulky but it comes with solar panels!
The installation of the iPhone into the case is simple as all you have to do is un-hook the top part of the case and slide the iPhone in. The ease of installation is nice because we think many people won’t be comfortable leaving their iPhone out in the sun, unattended for hours at a time.
The Sunny case is not a small case but we’ll let that slide since it does come with a 2500mAh battery and the back has two solar panels. The extra panel allows Sunny to claim that the case will charge four times faster than other products. We have no way of verifying this claim. The second panel can also act as a stand for your iPhone 6(s+)
The solar panel has an efficiency of 22.4% which is higher than the average panel that goes on houses and in a perfect world, can collect a max of 500mA from the sun. From our multiple charge cycles, the highest value we noticed was 385 mA but the strength of the sun varies with your location, and we think that our northern location in the world means that the sun isn’t as “powerful”.
Theoretically, the entire battery should charge in about 5 hours if operating a peak output with no efficiency loss but from our experience, that’s way too optimistic. The quickest full charge that we noticed took approx. 18 hours to get which required us to leave it outside for 1.5 days.
Shadows are the worst enemy for the case as the solar output would drop signification (almost nil) in the shade.This also means that indoor charging is non-existent.
[divider][/divider]
Protection – It has a rugged design?
For protection, the case isn’t drop rated though Sunny’s marketing fluff does point out the cases gorgeous, rugged design. We see marketing fluff like this are completely baffled because the abstract design on the back of the panel has nothing to do with the actual toughness of the case.
The edges of the case are high enough to keep it off a flat surface, and you’ll have a pretty easy time using edge-to-edge screen protectors. We’ve tried with the Winnergear Topaz and Moshi AG screen protectors, and they stay on.
Dust and debris shouldn’t be an issue as the top part of the case latches to the bottom quite tightly.
[divider][/divider]
Functionality – Use fusion to power your iPhone?
When it comes to accessing your iPhone, you can sync the iPhone through the case using the MicroUSB cable. The buttons are fairly easy to use and the sound coming from the speakers is projected outwards so you won’t have to worry about silencing your iPhone by accident when you place it in your backpack.
[divider][/divider]
Can you go 7 days without charging your iPhone?
With the Sunny Solar powered case, you might be able to go seven days without charging your iPhone if you lived in a very sunny place and was able to leave the Sunny case out in the open for hours on end.
We tried to get to 7 days be our iPhone 6s died 5.5 days into the experiment. We limited our iPhone usage to the occasional web-browsing, a couple of photos, texts and Facebooking. We left out gaming and movie/video watching.
We were able to get our iPhone 6s to last two days on the first charge and another two days on the charge from the battery. Between days 3 and 4, we tried leaving the Sunny case in the best places to get a charge, but our case only received a 50% charge (it was partly cloudy for the two days). This 50% charge gave our iPhone another 1.5 days worth of usage.
As we said earlier, if you can leave the case undisturbed in extremely sunny weather, there is a good chance you could use your iPhone without ever charging it.
[divider][/divider]
Have questions about our Sunny Case Review? Please ask them below, or on our Google+ page or our Facebook page or our About Us page. To stay up to date on everything we’re doing, check out our Twitter and Instagram feeds!
