Orange's Solar Concept Tent has lots of revolutionary, imaginary features

If the promise of Birkenstock-powered phone chargin' wasn't enough to get your ass to Glasto this year (never mind catching Björn Again perform ABBA's greatest hits on the Pyramid Stage), how about an up-close-and-personal peek at Orange's Solar Concept Tent? Designed with help from an American firm called Kaleidoscope, this guy is a refresh of the original Orange Solar Tent you might remember from 2003. Featuring photovoltaic fabric panels up top, an LCD display for keeping an eye on battery levels, a wireless charging pouch (like Palm's Touchstone but, you know, a pouch), a heating element embedded in the tent's groundsheet, the ability to light up if you should get lost while freaky dancing, and WiFi connectivity, this bad boy could conceivably get even the most nature-phobic Engadget editor out into the wild. That is, if it wasn't just a concept.

Gallery: Orange's Solar Concept Tent has lots of revolutionary, imaginary features

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[Via Textually]

[Tuig @ Jun 26th 2009 3:39AM]

Tent! Bez! Maracas!
Looks like a hit to me.

[chanmanplanet @ Jun 26th 2009 10:53AM]

hey... what's my wife's phone doing there... ?

[Kelvinyam @ Jun 26th 2009 3:39AM]

Cool design. But the risk of it being stolen when you are not sleeping inside is kinda high :)

[EI8HT @ Jun 26th 2009 3:48AM]

not with those small action figures around it, heck it would even scare the bears

[Tom @ Jun 26th 2009 3:52AM]

stupid idea it would get stolen in seconds

[Grandalf @ Jun 26th 2009 4:00AM]

If you are afraid of getting it stolen, you are doing camping wrong. One of the points of camping, is getting into the nature, away from other people - which would render the risk of it getting stolen slim to none

[EI8HT @ Jun 26th 2009 4:23AM]

away from people AND TECHNOLOGY.

you could just get a way from people by closing your door and having a watch dog at the door

[lawyer bird @ Jun 26th 2009 4:57AM]

very true. when too much technology gets mixed in with the great outdoors it starts to lose a little of that magic

[matt @ Jun 26th 2009 6:26AM]

whats the point in having this if you can't lord it over people..

still wanna see it short out the first time it pisses down... heating elements through ground sheet... for sho!

[Marco @ Aug 19th 2009 2:48AM]

Well, I agree Wi-Fi is completely stupid. But thumbs up to solar recharge. Even the most adventurous of the campers today needs a way to perform emergency communications. I would rather say that the most adventurous need it even more, and would not travel without a GPS, for instance. That's my case for instance :-)

The chance that my small Powermonkey Explorer solar panel gets stolen are much more than the entire tent. (and in fact that has happened already!). And let alone the fact that the small solar charger takes an age just to recharge a small GPS and an old Nokia with no UMTS...

Cheers

[Rex @ Jun 26th 2009 4:20AM]

How would it look like when it is compact?

[Bryan @ Jun 26th 2009 4:20AM]

give me a ring when it's available

[Will @ Jun 26th 2009 4:29AM]

if you can see a house in the background...it's not the wild.

[Aaron @ Jun 26th 2009 5:42AM]

This is about as wild as Britain gets...

[adam1drift @ Jun 26th 2009 6:05PM]

I'm just thinking... camping... woods.. trees... no sunlight... so its just an expensive tent at that point...

[dsteve303 @ Jun 26th 2009 4:35AM]

UM. I could probably buy a kick-ass winnabego with what this thing prolly would cost.

[Niacin @ Jun 26th 2009 5:07AM]

This is the best imaginary tent I have ever laid eyes on!!!

[JStro @ Jun 26th 2009 8:21AM]

Nuh-uh - The one I made between my two couches with sheets and pillows when I was 5 was way better. It even had laser beams, freaking laser beams - to keep the aliens away of course.

Pew pew.

[gerrrg @ Jun 26th 2009 6:25AM]

Right...who's gonna carry all that load in their backpack? Looks more like something a homeless person with electronic gadgets might like.

[ProfessorKaos @ Jun 26th 2009 7:54AM]

Mums the word on how that will fit bundled up on your backpack >.< I Mean I dont think those solar panels will fair nicely on that 20 mile trek :)

[Bellzebub @ Jun 26th 2009 8:17AM]

Muchos Maracas!

[rcappo @ Jun 26th 2009 9:17AM]

There are a few places/trips where I could see this coming in handy. If you are bicycling around Australia, climbing a mountain in Alaska(Leave this at base camp, but while getting accustomed to the elevation it would be nice), or are working on building a hut on a remote tropical island and need a place to stay that can provide power for phones, laptops, and cameras.

[steel36 @ Jun 26th 2009 9:45AM]

Um... is that Ed Young dancing around the thing. And.. why?

[bobw @ Jun 26th 2009 10:38AM]

So. You pack up your solar powered tent in its bag and trek off to your destination. As evening falls, you unpack it and set it up. There's a bit of a chill in the air. Where's my electric heated groundsheet! Oh, right. The sun is down, there's no battery storage (too heavy for camping gear) and anyway, it was packed in its bag all day.

Crap from beginning to end.

[adam1drift @ Jun 26th 2009 6:07PM]

I'm just thinking... camping... woods.. trees... no sunlight... so its just an expensive tent at that point...

[bushako @ Jun 26th 2009 10:54AM]

If i was out in the woods and saw that thing all lighted up..the first thing that would pop in my head would be "Aliens!!!" But no so after reading this on Engadget.

[ChaosMaestro @ Jun 26th 2009 11:00AM]

That tent looks about 2 man size, I have a tent about that size that folds up small enough to put at the bottom of a medium sized backpack.
Why do I get the feeling I'll need to strap it to roofrails on a car and spend about 5 hours setting it up?

[Jim @ Jun 26th 2009 11:06AM]

The warming floor would be a big plus in tent camping.

[adam1drift @ Jun 26th 2009 6:08PM]

or a fire hazard

[Ariel @ Jun 26th 2009 3:12PM]

I'm having trouble gauging the man-to-tent size scale.

[Chad Ellis @ Jun 26th 2009 5:02PM]

Having owned an RV and having added a solar system to it, I can say that this is marketing gimmicky, nothing more. You won't see anything like this in RL for many, many years to come. Solar panel technology still hasn't evolved that much from initial designs triggered by the public's first round of eco-consciousness after the oil embargo of the 1970s (it also produced mind-staggering inflation just like the upward drive of oil by OPEC and the commodities markets this decade). And if you want to save that solar energy to use a night or on cloudy days, well, you need to store in something--batteries. Don't get me started on how bad battery technology is--solar panels aren't efficient but battery technology is the real Achilles heel in this technology. So, nice gimmicky story; this prototype is very, very unrealistic.

[jdavidse @ Jun 26th 2009 5:56PM]

Yeah, but how much does it weigh? You can always tell the manufacturers that don't actually go hiking with their products, because there is zero mention of weight. It is either so heavy that no one in their right mind would buy it to put it in their backpack, or they simply never thought of listing it because they've never been hiking. My guess is this thing is more than 7 pounds. I'll take my 24 oz tent any day, thanks.

[Bill in Detroit @ Jun 27th 2009 11:30PM]

Dear Purists,
Just about 100% of my camping is done within sight of my car ... that's the way its done in a public campground. It would be nice -real nice- to have the thing light up when I was stumbling over things in the dark trying to find my way back from the outhouse / restroom. It would also be a plus to have it generate its own electricity. As bobw has observed, it's foolish to wait until dark to put this tent up and, having put a few of the non-electric sort of tents up in the dark, I'd have to agree. So DON'T wait until dark to put the darned thing up! (after all, then it only acts like the regular sort of tent that you waited until dark to erect.)

[Jessalyn @ Sep 3rd 2009 9:42PM]

Cool! Will there be a dimming feature? How about a thermostat? Dishwasher? Laundry? Personally, I'd prefer front-loading.


Haha, this takes the "camping" experience out of camping. Get a lantern and call it a night.