Goal Zero 41001 Switch 8 Silver/Black Solar Recharging Kit

My Nomad 3.5 and Switch 8 appear to be working fine. The Switch can get charged to 50% after a couple of days in the Florida sun. I can get it to charge to 100% if I breakdown and plug it in.

I just bought and received. I've successfully charged iPod and iPhone from sun directly and from goal zero battery that had charged from sun. Next week and for two months I'll be hiking the GR10 in France's Purenees. That will be the real test. Also it passed a drop on concrete test with flying colors! So far., love it.

I bought this to keep my i-phone charged while on kayaking trips. My initial response was negative as I was not aware that there is a small plastic tab inserted between one battery in the battery pack and the contact of the charger. It is small and clear so not obvious until you remove the batteries. Caused me a lot of frustration. Why not make this tab bright orange and mention it in the paper instructions that come with the kit? I can only get about one and one third charges for my i-phone from the batteries supplied. So I will still need a couple of spare battery packs. Winter time is a tough time to get reliable sunlight for long enough to charge the batteries as well. I have yet to see if it will survive a trip on top of the kayak charging while I paddle.

The solar panel was more than adequate to charge my phone (Motorola Droid (Razr)). However, when it came time to charge my phone from the included batery pack (Guide 10 Battery Pack), it wouldn't charge my phone at all, barely kept the battery level the same. I made sure to not have any extra running programs and made sure it wasn't constantly searching for a stronger signal (3G to 4G), so that shouldn't have been the problem. I even tried substituting the rechargable batteries with store bought AAs. Unfortunately, I wouldn't recommend this product to anyone (I'd recommend the solar panel, but you need continuous sun for it to be effective). Maybe the Escape 150 Power Pack would be more effective, but it's such a huge price difference it is probably out of most people's range. Was disappointing to get out on the lake and not be able to charge my phone using the battery pack to take pictures of my catches! Was excited about the purchase until it came time to use it.

I found this product very usefull when i was camping out in the woods for 7 long weeks. Even when it was raining this product still performed its best in moist conditions. It also took on large amounts of dirt and did not affect its performance.