Solar Water Heater for Camping Outdoor Travel with Solar Technology

It works fairly well as is, but it can be modded to work even better. You lose a lot of heat out of the top because the top is not well insulated, though the rest of it is insulated by the best insulation there is: vacuum insulation. You can increase the insulation by taking some clean pure wool fabric, balling it up and stuffing it into the top. Wool can handle high temps without burning. It's also non toxic, so if a stray fiber falls into your water or food, and you happen to accidentally drink or eat it, not a big deal. It's a decent insulator. So stuff it in and close the lid like normal. The wool will still allow pressured gas (air) to vent through it and out the top so it doesn't explode, but it will significantly increase the insulation with two or more inches of stuffed wool at the top. For the person complaining about using it during winter, yeah, in many places fairly north or south of the equator these kind of solar heaters don't work as well in the winter because the light is less direct and ambient colder temps conduct heat out of the top faster. However, this is where a small parabolic reflector or fresnel lens would come in handy. But don't focus it too much to a point, try to get a spread over a larger surface area. Mainly to avoid damage to the films, and the heating will be more even. I plan to also use this as a super heater for carbonizing and graphitizing materials. The idea is to feed a coiled nichrome wire down, connected to a copper wire. Get a thick piece of wood with wider circumference than the top of the Solar bottle. To that piece of wood put a coating of sodium silicate, and then adhere some ceramic insulation fiber to that. Let it fully cure. Then drill two holes through all that. Take a Q-tip and rub some sodium silicate up and down the holes walls (let cure before using). This helps to keep a better vacuum and protect the wood a bit. The two holes: one is to pull a vacuum, and the other is to put the wire through. Set everything up, put the the wire inside with your materials to heat, plug the holes (or any space left) with some high temp silicone, let it cure, pull a vacuum, connect the copper + nichrome wire to the electricity, and voila, you have a super heater that is very well insulated, and should get up to temps quite quickly. It will not hold a vacuum long term because of the silicone, but it will hold a vacuum sufficient for temporary sessions for heating fine.

Try it outside. Put some water in it and open the solar panels that catch the sunlight and focus it onto the solar absorber that surrounds the liquid (soup, tea, coffee, etc). After about a half-hour you have hot water and it is very possible to get boiling water out of it for sterilizing wild-water. It has a relief valve to prevent steam from building (or it would explode). It is well made -- mostly plastic -- possibly ABS or HDPE. From an engineering perspective the only improvement that could be made would be to use a gold first-surface mirror instead of silvered-surface (gold reflects more IR in the heat-wavelenghts) but that would boost the cost quite a bit possibly. When closed the reflective cavity keeps working to keep the liquid hot by reflecting IR radiation back into the container. Very cool design. You might block cold side-winds (that can cool the center container) while keeping it completely in the sun to get it hotter faster on cold days. Amazing product really -- a little solar hot water heater you can hold in your hand!

Haven't been able to use it as of yet however feel it will do what has to do when the time comes. My friend has gotten it and i have seen what it can do on a camping trip we had together. This is why I bought one myself. I cant wait to use mine! Just cause I rated it doesnt mean I dont know if it will work .... I have seen what it can do and I believe mine would be good too. Would I recommend this item.... Yes!

Received the first one crushed and they promptly sent me a new one with a refund. I will recommend these guys.The unit has an outer plastic shell with a glass tube on the inside which does not make me confident it will handle extensive backpacking without paying a lot of attention to careful handling. Haven't taken it into the field yet but I imagine it will work as advertised. I'd like to see a metal shell surrounding it for durability but understand the plastic concept as far as weight goes.

The media could not be loaded. We opened the box and read the instructions. An hour and half later after setting the Solar Water Cooker in the sun. We came back home from running errands and the water was steaming hot ready to be pour on our instant coffee. I suggest getting two Solar Water Cookers so you can have plenty of water to share and not have to wait to reheat more water. great Job guys on the product. Really Cool Stuff! - Lovely Earth

This heater works great. Test: Sunny day, 75 degrees outside, filled heater with 55 degree water, placed in full sun. Within 90 minutes the water was boiling and a little water was forced out of the relief valve. Pretty amazing solar heater.

I never got a chance to see if this thing worked or not. It was all busted up and broken when it came in the mail, back in 2021. Since then, it's sat on my top shelf collecting dust. $90 down the toilet.

I so wanted to see this work. Have read for years how individuals created home made solar hot waters systems and other devices. I sent back and received full refund. This unit arrived well packed and appears nicely constructed with reasonably quality materials. Desire is a way to have coffee or tea during power outages. First tested on a lightly cloudy day in late August in Florida, listed at 10 on weather app. 1.5 hours after set up, water 115 degrees, food thermometer sensor exposed to sun directly; 106. Next on sunny day, 1.5 hours, water just over 120 degrees, thermometer sensor exposed directly read 111. I could not get to delivery hot water I felt I would need. Did I do in wrong? did not see where I miss read any instructions. sorry to say.