GoSun Chill (Solar Cooler) Review

Thinking about buying a solar cooler (aka electric cooler), but not sure if they live up to the hype? We’ve been using our solar cooler (a GoSun Chill) for a while, and have wanted to write a GoSun Chill review (solar cooler review), but we recently put it through an extreme test…

… And it is the real deal! (We’ll talk more about it at the end of the review, but if you’re interested in buying the GoSun Chill, you can save 15% site-wide at GoSun by using this coupon code, AMBAEW1, at checkout.)

If you’re not familiar with the GoSun Chill, it’s a solar/battery powered cooler. Actually, it’s a small fridge the size of a cooler that can run on of regular wall power, but also on solar and battery power. 

You can set it to whatever temperature you want to keep your food at, from -4°F to 68°F! Which means…

NO MORE ICE!!!

You no longer need to continue draining water from your cooler, and refilling with ice. Plus your food doesn’t get soggy! It’s just like pulling your food straight from a fridge. Which is quite handy while camping!

At first you may think there’s less room, but you can actually fit more food inside than giant coolers, because you don’t need room for ice!

That alone was enough to get us to try it. We’ve been regularly using it on camping trips, along with a solar array to keep it charged, and only for a few days max. It performed excellently! In fact, it runs so efficiently that our solar panel (which is also sold by GoSun) was able to fully charge the battery, while also powering the cooler and charging a cell phone! Meaning that, after sitting in the sun and staying cool, it is ready to run all night! Glamping indeed!

We choose our solar display to be a table, so we can shade the cooler with it, but also have a table to use while camping. Depending upon the model of cooler you buy, a built in solar display is available.

Extreme Test

But in case you may want to use it for more than just camping. You’re in luck! Here’s how we put the GoSun Chill through an extreme test.

We drove across the country… TWICE… during a heatwave… in a black car… with a family of 4… and a dog!

The aforementioned ‘not needing ice,’ really shines during a road trip. You don’t need to stop and buy more ice, and drain water out. You just GO!

It was amazing! Our food was always cold, and dry (unlike when sitting in melting ice), and easy to access, because there’s not a bunch of ice covering your food. We didn’t have to worry about our food being cold enough, because the GoSun Chill would tell us exactly what temperature the inside is. This means traveling with kids who need milk, or storing lunch meat, or going fishing and keeping your catch cold, is a lot easier and stress free!

Battery Life

Below is the battery we use, Power 144, which is actually an older model. GoSun has come out with even better battery packs.

Driving for days on end really enables you to test out the battery life. While driving, we were able to stretch to 14+ hours on one battery! This thing is really efficient! 

GoSun advertises that the Chill will last 14 hours in 80°F weather. But you know how advertising works; we assumed that everything else was under ideal conditions, like the cooler is in the shade, with air flow, no one opening the cooler to get stuff out or put stuff in, and at the warmest temperature setting. We were pleasantly surprised by the truth in advertising. Because our cooler was located in a car, with a dog right up against it, limiting airflow. And it still performed well, with the temperature set to 35°F. Colder than our fridge at home!

Other perks

Ok, we know what you’re thinking, and it’s the biggest detractor to buying a solar cooler: What happens when you run out of battery? Well, it simply becomes a regular cooler! Your food is still cold inside, and it’s insulated really well! We tested this out by sitting the cooler in our black car, in the sun, with windows completely closed in 90 degree weather. It sat enclosed with a dead battery for approximately 3 hours, and increased from 35°F, to 41°F. So yeah, it’s a pretty good regular cooler too.

The battery can be completely drained, and the cooler will turn on and start running as soon as connected to a solar panel. Plus the battery will charge at the same time, as previously stated. Don’t forget, you can run everything on regular wall power too. And if push comes to shove (though we’ve never needed to), you can even run it off the 12v (cigarette lighter port) in your car!

GoSun Chill (Solar Cooler) Review Summary

We seriously can not say enough good things about the GoSun Chill in this solar cooler review! If you’re debating buying it, we highly recommend it. And we can save you some money too! Use this GoSun coupon code AMBAEW1 at checkout to get 15% off everything GoSun offers! It also helps out the blog… Although I’d say every good thing above, even if the code didn’t help us at all.

Enjoy the GoSun Chill, (They also just came out with the GoSun Chillest which possesses 2 internal sections, so you can set 2 different temperatures, a built-in battery, and can even include its own built-in solar panel!), and enjoy never having to worry about ice, rotten food, nor power again!