At the Glastonbury Festival in the UK last week, Orange unveiled their Solar Concept Tent. Designed in association with American product design consultancy Kaleidoscope, the concept builds on learnings from the original Orange Solar Tent that was trialled at Glastonbury in 2003, as well as 2004’s Orange Text Me Home Dome.
The Concept Tent features photovoltaic fabric panels up top, an LCD display for keeping an eye on battery levels, a wireless charging pouch, a heating element embedded in the tent's groundsheet, and WiFi connectivity. The tent would be also be fitted with innovative “glo-cation” technology. Glo-cation works by enabling campers’ mobile phones to identify their tent using either an SMS message or automatic active RFID technology; both would trigger a distinctive glow in the tent helping identify it from a distance.
So how long until this tent becomes reality and who will manufacture it? I wouldn't want to fathom how much it might weigh however……