Trevor Baylis Eco Lantern Product Review

Trevor Baylis is one of the greatest modern inventors. Creator of the wind up radio, the developing world has benefited greatly and what has followed is a slew of wind up products. I’ll always remember the wind up Eco Media Player the most though, mainly for this awful video below. It’s almost painful to watch, but I still love the idea of his products and his vision.

The Eco Lantern is designed for camping trips where you don’t have easy access to mains electricity. A one minute wind will give 20 minutes of light from the five bright LEDs in the lantern. And it really does work, wind away for a minute and switch it on. The light is indeed bright and white. Although it wasn’t as bright as I expected, that was until I turned it upside down. Hanging it from the loop (an additional ‘S’ shape hook is included and you can also slip it onto a screw or nail) and the illumination seems much greater.

Pressing the on button for a second time switches off the white LEDs and illuminates two orange LEDs on a strip around the outside of the lantern. These are called the ‘night lights’ and give off a soft glow. At first I thought these were too soft and pretty useless, but when using it in a confined space the light is actually quite nice and works as described.

The only gripe I have is that a mains charger isn’t included. There is a car charger, which will fully charge it in three hours but what if you go to your camping trips on public transport and want to charge it before you leave? The winding action is housed in the base and a minute of winding is easy enough. When you haven’t used it for a long it suggests a three minute charge and that is a little tougher. My arm started to ache a little doing that, which I put down to lack of going to the gym, so I’ll suggest passing it around to your camping buddies.

Available from Ethical Superstore, the Trevor Baylis Eco Lantern costs £21.95.

Flashstick USB Drive Eco Product Review

You may have noticed the adverts for www.flashsticks.co.uk along the top of Life Goggles and since we’re advertising them I thought we’d best check one out.

The name ‘flashstick’ is simple and apt. A flashstick is a flash drive that’s also a stick. Literally. This usb drive is encased in a piece of hard wood, meaning the packaging is very environmentally friendly. That’s also because the wood is basically a twig from a branch that’s fallen off a tree in the woods in Berkshire, England. There’s no cutting down of trees here.

The wood is left to dry out for a few months and then carefully hollowed out to add the flash drive, then smoothed off and beeswax is used to give a nice finish. And that’s basically it. It looks real because it is real and will even get woodworm if you keep it in the wrong place.

There is a little plastic cover that goes over the top (you can see it in the video below), which is unavoidable really as the stick stands up nicely and it would get dirty and knocked. It’s is a minimal piece but maybe in the future that could be made out of wood?

As well as it’s looks and manufacturing process, it also has to perform as a usb drive. While the trend it is get bigger and bigger usb drives I’ve never seen the need to carry more than one or two gigabytes around with me, the rest is just empty space otherwise. The flashsticks are all two gig and work beautifully. I plugged it in, my PC took about 10 seconds to download a driver and it worked away. As it’s usb 2.0 it transfers files fast and easily, I haven’t had a problem with it at all and use it regularly.

Available from www.flashsticks.co.uk for £15, this is an unusual usb drive which has good eco-credentials.

Echarger Emergency Charger Product Review

Charging things like MP3 players and phones on the move has become big business. After the car charger was invented, then came the question of how to charge away from the home and the car. You can now get mini-turbines and solar panels like the Solio Hybrid we reviewed. This emergency charger from Echarger is basically a way to connect an AA battery to any device and give it a charge in an, er, emergency.

And it works pretty well actually. I was impressed with it. You just find the right connector and connect it to your device and let it do it’s business. You can use a normal AA battery or a rechargeable one – other size batteries doesn’t fit.

I used a 2700 mAh rechargeable battery to charge my MP3 player through a mini USB connection and after about 45 mins it filled up one bar – which doesn’t sound a lot but is similar to the main and gave a good hours worth of listening. And even when the battery couldn’t charge anymore it the little LED flashlight still worked on any residual battery life that remained. It won’t light up a whole room but could help you find you keys in the dark.

It comes with a wide range of connectors, although the Sony Ericsson adapter was the old style so I couldn’t check how well it charged my phone – you can contact Echarger for a new one. Another nifty feature is that if you put a rechargeable battery in it then you can connect it to your computer and charge it up off the USB.

I find it a handy little device to have around, it measures only about 8cm long so you can even keep it in your pocket when you’re out hiking. As with all these charging devices, the product itself isn’t made from environmentally-friendly materials, but if you used a rechargeable battery and plug it into the computer while it’s on ayway, then you have a pretty green way of charging.

Available from Echarger, the emergency charger costs £15.

Oscar USB Hub Eco Product Review

The United Pepper Oscar USB Hub is another device that attempts to take an eco-friendly approach to electronics in addition to their Lili webcam we’ve previously reviewed.

Designed in Belgium, and made in Vietnam the Oscar USB hub is made from 70% Fair Trade components. Removing as much of the plastic as possible, the usb hub is made from paperboard, cotton and kapok, and comes in red, blue or green (we got a green one of course!).

There’s not much to say about it, it looks cute, came in 100% PET recycled packaging, is only just over 6cm (about 2.5″), and has four USB sockets. It connects to your computer via a USB lead that connects to the hub via a mini-USB socket, so if you need a longer lead they’re easy to find.

Available for $30 or €25 from United Pepper it’s a nice sustainable approach to electronics.

Echarger Mobile Solar Charger Product Review

Solar charging has almost become the method of choice of charging gadgets on the move. With products like the Solio Hybrid, if you live somewhere sunny it’s an easy decision to make. But what about in less sunny climes? Well in the UK, Echarger has launched theMobile Solar Charger.

Unlike the Solio, it doesn’t have an internal battery so you’ll need to put in up to three rechargeable batteries and then unfold the case to reveal the solar panels. Then it’s up to the sun. You can also use it to charge the batteries through your computer using the USB cable, but I went for six hours in the British sun. And it was a lovely day so I hoped for good results.

It was recommended that I use 1600mAh rechargeable batteries for best performance but as I’ve only got 2700mAh ones I had to make do. The charger comes with a few connectors – Nokia, Sony Ericsson, iPod, USB and one for the Nintendo DS so that’s what I decided to try and charge with it afterwards. I left it alone to charge although you can play it while its charging (but I didn’t) and the three batteries gave one and a half hours of charging. This translated to almost an hour and a quarter of game play on the DS before it died – and that was with full sound and the screen brightness at maximum. Which is pretty good really.

The downside is that although the charger is portable in size, you can’t really use it on the move – it doesn’t attach to a backpack like the Solio Hybrid for example. Also as a piece of electronics it’s not made from environmentally friendly materials, but using rechargeable batteries powered by the sun is better than using the mains or normal batteries.

The Mobile Solar Charger costs £30 from Echarger.

Lili Webcam Eco Product Review

The United Pepper Lili Webcam is one of the first sustainable design electronics, and certainly the first sustainable webcam I’ve come across.

Made from sand, cotton and kapok, the Belgian designers (it’s manufactured in Vietnam) have tried to remove as much plastic as possible. 70% of the material is Fair Trade, and it comes in recycled (PET) packaging.

As a webcam itself it’s not bad. A 1.3 megapixel camera does the job as a webcam but don’t expect to be producing quality recordings with it. It has a built in microphone and when communicating with family it works great, though the colors can be a little washed out. The sand filled legs are flexible that makes it easier to position on difficult surfaces.

The test version I’ve got strangely has a seperate plug for the microphone socket, as well as the USB connector, though I’m not sure if it’s like that in the final product. Installation was on a minin-CD and was pretty simple though novices might find the lack of clear English and full instructions a little tricky. It has a manual focus lens too which actually made some things easier to see than my much more expensive webcam.

Overall, for a simple webcam with a built in microphone you can do worse, and for a sustainable webcam, you can’t do better. Available for $45 or €40 from United Pepper.

Solar Shaver Eco Product Review

I like the idea of a solar shaver, available from Nigel’s Eco Store. It’s clearly designed for traveling with a nice picture of an airplane on it. Leave it out in the sun for a few hours (or days if you forget about it like me), and it’s fully powered for your, er, shaving needs.

I use a razor usually and found changing to a shaver a little difficult. For a start this one just didn’t get that close, it was an effort to get a clean shave. I could have shaved my whole face by the time I had done one cheek with this. I’m not sure whether it was this shaver or electric ones in general. It is pretty handy, it’s small enough not to be cumbersome, either when carrying around or using. The only problem was when it ran out of juice (it lasts surprisingly long), you then have to put it in the sun for a while to recharge it. With half a shaved face.

With an intergrated cleaning brush in the cap, the solar shaver is available from Nigel’s Eco Store for £29.99.

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