Remember the sun? That thing that used to blissfully blanket your skin, give you vitamin D, and make you happy, until something called “fall” happened? (Here in the Northwest, our nine months of rain have started, like the gestation of some sort of twisted depression-baby.)
Yet another reason the sun used to be awesome is that it could charge your iPhone. According to Treehugger:
The EnerPlex Surfr series, available for the iPhone 4/4S and the Galaxy SIII, …[is] not just lightweight and rugged and offer a backup power source, but also features an integrated thin-film solar panel capable of adding to the talk time (or surfing the web and Instagram-ing our meals) of our smartphones.
The iPhone 4 version of the Surfr weighs just 72 grams and measures 15mm thick, and has a 1400 mAh Li-ion battery pack for keeping your phone powered through the longest days. The battery can be charged via a power outlet or boosted with the solar panel, and nearly doubles the battery life of your phone.
Oh, did you wanna see a video of the iPhone case in action, complete with sweet ’80s elevator music? Here you go:
I mean, yes, technically they make these solar cases for your Samsung phone too, but who has one of those? Old people? (That’s what I call a sun burn.)
![](https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/sneakers-crop.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=768)