You’ve seen EcoFlow’s hat with integrated solar panels — now meet Anker’s more practical Solix Solar Beach Umbrella, fitted with a new generation of perovskite solar cells. It can produce up to 100W of total output from XT-60 and USB-C connections, which could keep Anker’s new battery-powered Solix EverFrost 2 Electric Cooler running indefinitely in sunny environments.
Science
This stick tests your hormones using your phone and saliva
If you’re health-conscious, chances are your feed for the past year has been flooded with influencers evangelizing hormone balancing as a hack for easy weight loss, lowering stress levels, and even reversing symptoms of hormonal conditions like polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). So it’s not at all surprising to see Eli Health announce Hormometer, an at-home hormone-testing system that uses your spit and your smartphone’s camera to measure hormone levels.
Like many at-home tests, Hormometer requires you to take a sample of bodily fluid. In this case, it’s saliva. It consists of a thin cartridge that you stick in your mouth for 60 seconds. It looks similar to a pregnancy test, with a window where you can view results. Once collected, the Eli app uses your phone’s camera to assess the test’s results based on criteria like color intensity and sample patterns. Depending on the test and results, Eli Health says the app will then provide personalized trends and recommendations related to stress, sleep, athletic performance, and fertility.
To start, Eli Health says it’s offering two types of hormone tests: cortisol and progesterone. Cortisol is commonly known as the stress hormone and plays a critical role in regulating fight or flight response, blood pressure, blood sugar, metabolism, and sleep cycles. Long-term imbalances, both high and low, are often linked with negative health outcomes including Cushing’s syndrome, unintentional weight gain / loss, fatigue, Type 2 diabetes, and abnormal blood pressure. Meanwhile, progesterone is a reproductive hormone. Abnormal levels can result in irregular periods, fertility problems, and depression.
Eli Health’s tests are a reflection of recent health and wellness trends. Connected at-home testing kits, for example, saw a rise in popularity at the height of the covid-19 pandemic. Though expensive, smart over-the-counter PCR tests like Cue Health became a major part of some tech companies’ return-to-office plans, thanks to their convenience and accuracy.
Similarly, a big part of Hormometer’s appeal is its portability and accessibility. Traditionally, hormone tests have to be sent to a lab and are often taken at a doctor’s office. That can take several days or weeks. They can also be messy if they’re urine-based or invasive if blood-based. The advantage of this type of test is it doesn’t require another party and can turn around results more quickly. As far as cost, Eli Health says Hormometer will come with a subscription plan, starting at $8 monthly with a 12-month commitment. That’s competitive with other at-home hormone tests, which can range from roughly $30 to $250 and require people to mail in samples.
Meanwhile, balancing hormone levels, particularly cortisol, has become a viral wellness trend. Tips to fix “cortisol face,” for example, ran rampant on TikTok throughout 2024. However, experts have decried hormone balancing as both misleading and potentially harmful — hormones can’t truly be balanced, as they’re dynamic and naturally ebb and flow throughout the day. That said, these tests could help people with official diagnoses of chronic hormonal or reproductive health issues monitor their conditions.
A lot of that will depend on accuracy. According to Eli Health, the Hormometer is FDA registered. To be clear, this is different than clearance or approval. It doesn’t mean the FDA has reviewed or cosigned Eli Health’s claims. That said, the company claims that its cortisol and progesterone tests had a 97 percent and 94 percent agreement with gold-standard, FDA-approved lab tests in third-party testing, respectively.
Eli Health says Hormometer will begin beta access this month in the US and Canada. A full release is expected later this year. And while Hormometer is currently limited to cortisol and progesterone, the company says it’s already developing testosterone and estradiol tests for the future.
Science
Jackery’s Solar Roof announced alongside new solar generator at CES 2025
Jackery is expanding its lineup of energy products for home use and outdoor adventures at CES 2025 with the launch of its new Solar Roof tiles, a mid-sized solar generator, and a high-powered charger for vans, pickups, and RVs that can keep its giant portable batteries at the ready.
Most interesting is the Solar Roof built around curved tiles available in obsidian or terra-cotta red — the latter mimicking clay-tiled roofs even better than the flat terra-cotta solar panels we’ve seen in Europe. Jackery claims an “industry-leading cell conversion efficiency of over 25 percent” for its panels that can withstand hail impact, high winds, and temperatures from -40 degrees Fahrenheit to 185 degrees Fahrenheit, all backed up by a 30-year warranty.
Jackery’s Solar Roof is designed to work with the company’s most powerful energy storage solutions, including Jackery’s existing 5000 Plus flagship solar generator and the massively scalable HomePower Energy System (ES) launching later this year. Announced a few months back, the HomePower ES system requires professional installation and can produce up to 11.4kW of power and handle both 120V and 240V loads. The system features LFP batteries with a max storage capacity that reaches a whopping 123.2kWh — enough power and stored energy to keep every electrical device in an average home running for more than four days during a blackout.
The new Explorer 3000 v2 solar generator slots in just below Jackery’s 5000 Plus model and is designed to keep critical devices like the fridge running for several hours during a blackout and serve as a portable battery that can be recharged from the sun when heading off the grid for work or recreation. It features 3kWh of LFP storage and a sustained output of 3600W. Impressively, Jackery claims an instantaneous 0ms UPS cutover time.
Jackery says it can be recharged in about 11 hours from a pair of 200W solar panels or 2.5 hours when connected to an AC wall jack. It’ll take nearly 36 hours to charge from a 12V car socket, or better yet, plug it into Jackery’s new DC-DC car charger also being announced at CES 2025.
Jackery joins Bluetti, EcoFlow, DJI, and others with its first alternator charger. After the DC-DC car charger is installed in your vehicle with a cable snaked up to your car’s battery, you’ll be rewarded with up to 600W of charging for your big-ass Jackery battery, which is about five times faster charging than you’d get from a standard 12V car socket.
Unfortunately, Jackery’s announcements are lacking in detail like pricing or availability, despite our asking.
Science
Withings new Cardio Check-Up brings a cardiologist into your health wearable system
If you’re a Withings device owner and a Withings Plus subscriber, there’s a new feature coming to your health tracking system. It’s a telemedicine service called Cardio Check-Up, designed to make it easy to check in on your heart health with a professional.
Any Withings device that collects electrocardiogram data (which is most of them at this point) can be used in Cardio Check-Up. The Withings Plus subscription, which costs $99.95 per year, will now include four checkups annually, though they’re not live appointments — a cardiologist will instead review your data and deliver you a heart health report. It works through a provider called Heartbeat Health, which has been working with Withings on EKG features for the last few years.
Cardio Check-Up gives Withings an answer to one of the most pressing challenges facing any health wearable, which is how to help users make sense of this mountain of complex data they’re suddenly collecting. Companies like Oura and Whoop are working on ways to collate your data into actual, actionable feedback, so you can know what’s going on and how to do better without needing a medical degree of your own.
Withings is doing lots of that automated coaching and feedback, too, of course, and never more obviously than in its new full-body, multifeatured Omnia mirror concept. There’s even a motivational AI health coach! But this is high-stakes stuff, especially when it comes to your heart, and it’s hard to get right with software alone — so adding a human to the mix makes sense.
Withings is also launching the BPM Vision, another measurement device for your heart. It’s a $129.95 at-home blood pressure reader with a screen on the machine that helps you both use the device correctly and make sense of its readings. It can also apparently display motivational messages, prompt you to log symptoms, and remind you to take your medication. It sounds a little like a smart-home hub… for your health. It’ll be available in April, Withings says, pending clearance by the FDA.
Neither BPM Vision nor Cardio Check-Up is as exciting and futuristic as the Omnia. But they all point to the same goal for the company: to find every possible way to track and log your health, and then do something useful with all that info.
Science
Anker’s solar umbrella uses next-gen perovskite cells to keep a longer charge
Perovskite is a new type of solar cell that can outperform the silicon-based cells found in most of today’s solar panels in almost every way. Anker claims its perovskite cells offer “30 percent better performance than crystalline silicon solar cells in bright light, and double the efficiency in low light.”
The silicon-based solar cells shipping today in consumer panels currently max out at around 24 percent efficiency, with a theoretical efficiency near 30 percent. Solar panels that layer a perovskite film on top of a silicon base can absorb even more light — perovskite cells can be optimized at the blue end of the light spectrum while silicon cells harvest energy on the red end — to reach solar conversion efficiencies of up to 43 percent. That’s a step change in how we harvest energy from the sun. Notably, perovskite can be made from low-cost materials that are widely available.
A UK-based company called Oxford PV announced in September that it had already started the “world’s first” commercial sales of solar panels using perovskite-on-silicon cells, boasting a 24.5 percent efficiency, with improvements on the horizon.
Unfortunately, Anker isn’t offering any details on the origins of its “perovskite solar cells,” despite us reaching out with questions. That leaves a lot of unknowns around things like conversion efficiencies and life expectancy — the latter being a historical problem for perovskite. We also don’t know the weight of the umbrella. We do know that the folding Solix Solar Beach Umbrella stands just over seven feet (215cm) tall with a six-foot, two-inch (190cm) diameter. It also has an IP67 rating, so it should hold up to blowing sand and rain.
There’s still time for Anker to answer our questions, since the solar umbrella won’t ship before summer 2025 for an undetermined price.
We know a lot more about Anker’s new Solix EverFrost 2 Electric Cooler, available in 23L, 40L, and 58L models. The rugged (IPX3) unit features six-inch wheels — large enough to roll over semi-rough terrain (small stones and rough gravel) — and a fold-down tray that can also be used as a handle. However, only the 58L model includes two independent compartments to create a dual-zone fridge and freezer.
Anker claims it’s the first from this class of portable fridges to use air-cooled refrigeration instead of direct cooling. That will likely make it noisier and less power-efficient than competing models from EcoFlow and Bluetti, while having the advantage of improved temperature uniformity, faster cooldown, and no need to manually defrost the thing.
The Solix EverFrost 2 can provide up to 104 hours of cooling from a pair of detachable 288Wh LFP batteries — and half that with a single battery. The batteries can also be removed to function as power banks, with 60W USB-C and 12W USB-A jacks to charge your gadgets. The batteries can be charged off 100W of solar input, a 12V car socket, an AC wall jack, or USB-C connection.
Prices are set at $699 (23L), $749 (40L), and $999 (58L), with preorders for the 40L and 58L models starting on February 21st before shipping a few weeks later. The tiny 23L model is slated to launch in Q2.
-
Startup Stories1 year ago
Why Millennials, GenZs Are Riding The Investment Tech Wave In India
-
Startup Stories1 year ago
Startups That Caught Our Eyes In September 2023
-
Startup Stories1 year ago
How Raaho Is Using Tech To Transform India’s Fragmented Commercial Trucking
-
Startup Stories1 year ago
Meet The 10 Indian Startup Gems In The Indian Jewellery Industry’s Crown
-
Startup Stories1 year ago
WOW Skin Science’s Blueprint For Breaking Through In The $783 Bn BPC Segment
-
Crptocurrency10 months ago
Lither is Making Crypto Safe, Fun, and Profitable for Everyone!
-
Startup Stories1 year ago
How Volt Money Is Unlocking The Value Of Mutual Funds With Secured Lending
-
E-commerce1 year ago
Top Online Couponing Trends To Watch Out For In 2016