There are a few reviews here and there of the PowerPot.
I'm mainly curious about how the PowerPot works in snowy conditions.
The deal with thermocouplers is that they work through temperature differentials
and a heated tent stove melting snow seem ideal conditions.
I think that if it could charge in 1-2 hours, and the conditions are right, that
you could use it easily in practice.
Winter camping is ideal usage:
1. If you're using a pulk the small amount of extra weight won't kill you.
2. You have plenty of cold snow to melt.
3. If you're using a hot tent setup you have a stove that you can keep running
for hours ANYWAY so might as well recharge your phone too.
The issue of course is charge time and maintaining the fire / pot.
I could easily see myself heating 3-5L of water for normal evening cooking (tea,
food, etc) and if I don't need the water I could just discard it outside and
only use it to charge my phone.
I checked the specifications and it seems that they provide 5V at 1000mA which
is the same as an AC charger.
https://www.thepowerpot.com/powerpot-v
http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/61671/will-an-iphone-ipod-touch-charge-faster-when-connected-to-usb-3-0
Based on this I sould expect to charge an iPhone from 0% to 100% in about 2
hours.
This is a LOT of time in summer backpacking but not much so during winter. If
you get to camp at 4PM and setup camp you have about 4-5 hours until night.
If it takes 20-30 minutes boil 2L of water from snow, this would mean 4-6 times
you would need to discard the water and start again (to fully charge your
phone).
This seems realistic and certainly doable.
My main question is whether this works in PRACTICE so it would be nice to get
feedback from PowerPot owners.
