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When it’s time to head to the lake, beach, or the campsite, one thing that everyone is thinking about is how to keep the food and beverages appropriately chilled. While there’s always the trusty cooler, ice packs, or bags of ice, there’s a new class of device we’ve been seeing more of. Think of it as a cooler that functions more like a portable fridge. Do that, and you’ll have the Anker EverFrost, which is now going through crowdfunding over on Kickstarter.
Anker EverFrost: How it’s Powered
What’s particularly unique about the Anker EverFrost – aside from coming from one of our trusted charging brands – is just how, exactly, this powered cooler is, well, powered. To start with, you can run it from a 12V DC adapter in your car, just like many of these can. But what about away from the car? Well, friends, you’re covered there as well. You’ve got a removable 299 Wh battery that can keep things running (27-42 hours, depending on the cooler capacity).
What we like about how this was designed is two-fold. For one, to use the battery, you’re just plugging in a USB-C cable. This means it’s not tightly tied into the cooler itself, meaning you’re not going through charge cycles if you’ve got this plugged into the accessory adapter while you drive to where you’re headed. Secondly, this battery pack is removable, meaning you could – in theory – have a spare to extend your cooling runtimes.
Then again, if you really want to extend the runtime, you can plug in a solar panel to the Anker EverFrost. Anker offers one, of course, though they don’t state how much that improves the runtime for the cooler. Still, if you’re thinking of something like this, whatever you can do to keep things chilled for the weekend is definitely going to be a bonus.
Price
That said, all this technology doesn’t come cheap. While you can get a decent standard cooler for around $100, the Anker EverFrost comes in at earlybird pricing of $519 (and that’s a 30% discount from the MSRP). If you want to go to larger sizes, add a second battery, or throw in the solar panel, pricing goes up from there. While I’m curious about these devices, the pricing has me sticking with my trusty coolers, ice packs, and ice. You can check out the campaign, which is fully funded and ends May 7, 2023, over at kickstarter.com
Tech Specs from Anker
