Like many middle-aged men, I have a big solar-powered area on the top of my head: It’s 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 — or it did until I tried the $129 EcoFlow Power Hat (currently $99 on sale), a new combination sun hat/solar power source.
It 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’s just a damn ugly hat.
Pros
- Covers my head, adequately doing the job of a hat
- Can technically trickle charge a phone, so I guess it works
Cons
- Very low charging rate at just 5 watts of power
- Needs a cable running down your back
- Design will only appeal to Wicked cosplayers (it’s ugly)
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Design: The least attractive hat I’ve ever worn
Let me be 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’m 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’ve been whacked, Wile E. Coyote style, by a falling satellite dish. I’m a big fan of practicality over style, but there are limits, especially as it’s not very practical.
That’s 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’t 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’re not getting a consistent amount of direct sunlight.
What does all that mean in practical terms? It means this solar hat doesn’t 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’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.
It’s ugly and has solar panels that are too small to be effective for, well, anything. It might be better if they went with a flat cap design, or a sahara or hiking hat design with the solar panels on the top or neck flap instead. It’s also an inferior solution to simply getting a fast and compact portable charger, like the InfinityLab InstaGo 5000 or Anker 523 PowerCore Slim 10K PD. Another alternative is using a larger portable solar panel, which you can pair with a power station or attach to your backpack as you hike to charge your devices, as with the Bluetti Handsfree 2.
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