Anker made a solar beach umbrella, because of course
Anker's empire is vast, spanning everything from cheap batteries to 3D printers, but more importantly, it's varied. Case in point, the company is introducing the Anker Solix Solar Beach Umbrella at CES 2025, a flexible, freestanding shade structure that can also charge your phone or power the company's EverFrost 2 cooler.<br /> Like a normal umbrella, the Solix Solar Beach Umbrella is portable, collapsible, and designed to protect you from rain (Anker's umbrella is specifically IP67 rated). What makes this solar beach umbrella unique from what you might have laying around in your garage are the flexible solar panels it has attached on top.<br /> Anker<br /> Anker says it's using perovskite solar cells in its panels, which are supposed to offer "30 percent better performance" than traditional crystalline silicon cells, and translates to a solar rated power of up to 80W. The company has offered few details about how the Solix Solar Beach Umbrella works beyond that, including how much it will actually cost when it launches, but it's not a completely unexpected extension of what Anker was already doing with solar.<br /> The company launched its Solix line of home energy products in 2023, introducing Tesla Powerwall-esque home backup batteries, and retroactively branding portable solar panels and large capacity batteries in the process. The Solix Solar Beach Umbrella is expected to join the Solix lineup in either spring or summer 2025, according to Anker.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/anker-made-a-solar-beach-umbrella-because-of-course-030040245.html?src=rss