One of the most popular light solutions for outdoor activities involves solar to make it all happen. However, solar charging isn’t exactly a quick process and once you run out of juice, you’re stuck until the sun rises again. HydraLight Inc has a new product on Kickstarter that will allow you to solve this with just saltwater.
The Hydra-Light is a lantern that uses saltwater to power itself as well as your cellphone if it’s running dry. It can function with fresh saltwater or you can simply add table salt to water if you don’t have a source of natural saltwater nearby. On-board is a USB port for charging gadgets and they will also offer an accessory option that gives you a small light with a 25ft cable to run somewhere it would function best, like the inside of a tent (as seen in the image above).
It can function for up to 250+ hours (what they say will be the equivalent of 85 AA batteries) before having to replace parts and last up to 25 years (when stored dry). To trigger the process, you simply detach the bottom section of the Hydra-Light to reveal a reservoir that you fill with the saltwater. Place it all back together and you’re ready to go. The only thing that limits you to the 250+ hours is the rod inside that you can swap out for another 250+ hours of use (which will be sold separately and hopefully much less than the price of an equivalent amount of batteries).
They aren’t available just yet since they are still in their Kickstarter phase for a few more days, but you can check them out and still back the project before it ends. At this moment, there are still 51 hours left in the campaign. You don’t be able to take advantage of the reward options since they are all sold out, but I’m sure an extra $1 here or there would help push them to market that much quicker.
HydraLight Inc has already raised over $36,000 with a goal of only $25,000, so you can tell that hopes are high. We will make sure to bring you anything exciting if we get the opportunity to take one for a spin.
