4PatriotsSun Kettle: Portable Solar Water Heater For Hunting & Emergencies - 16.9 oz Capacity

I was kinda skeptical about this device. However I was soon taken in by this simple technological marvel. I put it out on a cool day about 65 degrees with a low angle winter sun. I walked off and forgot about it. About 3.5 hours later I remembered I left it outside after the sunset. I retrieved it and took a temperature reading on the glass on the outside of the water reservoir it read about 55 degrees. I opened it up and took a reading of the water and it read 155 degrees. I closed it back up and then took another reading an hour later and was reading 110 degrees. So you ask does it work? Yes it does. My only con is the personal version of this water heater only holds about a small water bottle full. There is a larger version as well you can purchase if you want more water. In my personal opinion it was worth every penny. It’s one of those things I would rather have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

I only bought one of these so I could try it out as there were quite a few reviews that stated that it did not heat the water as expected. I placed mine in the sun around 9:00 am. I left it there for about 2.5 hours. Note that it was about 75 degrees when I put it out there. When I went to check on it, it had steam coming out of the vent at the top. I will warn you to be careful when picking the unit up at this point. I touched the palm of my hand to the vent and it was very hot. I did not check the temperature of the water, but when I poured it out in the sink it was steaming. I would recommend this product. If you have more than one person that you intend to use this for, I would get another one. This unit does not hold enough water for more than one or two servings for many freeze dried foods, but its plenty for two or three cups of coffee or tea. I plan to buy one more.

No built in thermometer (there is one by another mfg that's less and has it. Also the cap is easy to cross-thread. It does indeed heat, I just would have liked to have the thermometer.

it is semi bulky but it does exactly as listed and works great. No problems setting up and using worked after the time passed to heat up the water. Which it does take time to do but it works great. I would like to test more options like this and compare the best to the worse but will look into it more later.

I have not done much with this yet, but did test it and got it ready. The cap had some extra plastic stuck on it that I had to remove to fully assemble it, which was not clear. I thought I broke it as I was trying to connect the two cap parts, but then figured out the extra pieces of plastic were not needed. Not very clear about that.Otherwise, seems to work great, can’t wait to use this in a real situation!

6month update: shiny reflector paint rubbed off when I was wiping off water spots and fly/bee poop on One side of panel so I am now using aluminum foil taped in the concave panel as a makeshift reflector. Still works, I think as long as the sun hits directly on the tube part it will still heat up. The rubber stoppers still keep falling off and I noticed the white rubber is slightly coating the inner tube with white streaks when in falls to bottomSometimes and gets boiled… may interfere with the inner coating that helps increase/absorb/trap in heat maybe…Update still using it, 4 month+ of use even with the flaws…. seems like after you boil to 212 degrees the rubber plug valve and inside rubber seal cap loosen/deform or shrink and keep falling off or falling into the tube. It is annoying to keep putting back on and try not to loose the rubber pieces…also if a bird, fly or bee poops on the shiny mirror and dries in the sun, when you wipe or scrape it off it will peel off the mirror paint/coating and leave a black spot…better to have a shiny mirror that is full metal polished steel instead…old review: .it works but lot of problems with quality control. I compared the first and second one I bought. First one worked fine but after I took off the inside rubber stopper to wash and put back on then used to boil water to 212 degree F., the rubber stopper deformed widen and fell off and will not stay on the cap anymore. I also noticed my fist one the stand is a bit wider so does not fold back in to the reflector panel notches so I have to squeeze together the wire stand to fold into the locking notches compared to my second one the stand is narrower so folds back smoothly into the locking notches without a fuss. The second one I bought the bottom plastic stand section fell off and I had to stick it back on and pushing in the silicone seal took some effort ( I think the vibration moving around wiggles the bottom stand off during shipping). In addition, my second one seems to not seem to close and stick with magnets like my first one I bought. You can tell from first one it attracts and closes the panels together to close, but my second one seems like just has metal pins that are not magnetized. Will not stay shut like my first one. I did not remove the rubber stopper from my second one to clean because I don’t want to risk it falling off like the first, but I will try boiling to 212 F again and see if the rubber deforms and falls off or maybe there is some kind of adhesive that bonds it to the lid??? Not sure but this time I will not remove the rubber stopper to clean it. Wish I could buy extra rubber stopper that goes in the screw on cap I might lose it if it keeps falling off on my first one. Still works I just stuff the rubber stopper inside the tube rather the inside of cap because it will otherwise fall off into the tube.

I did places in the sun. It did fall apart. It never did boil any water. The boiling water portion is so tiny that you really can’t put anything but a hotdog in there I was trying to do water for coffee, but it did not work.

We live in earthquake country so want to make sure we are ready if we're left with no electricity. 45 degrees out this morning and had boiling water in under an hour. Very happy with my purchase, so happy that I am purchasing the XL.