SOLIX EverFrost 2 Electric Cooler

A cooler is normally a box that loses the argument slowly. Ice melts, water pools, and by the second afternoon you are drinking something lukewarm out of a puddle. The EverFrost 2 takes the other route and runs a compressor instead.

The Anker SOLIX EverFrost 2 is a 40-litre compressor cooler that drops its interior from 77°F to 32°F in fifteen minutes and then holds anywhere between -4°F and 68°F. That is the whole difference between slowing heat down and pumping it back out: a passive cooler only insulates, so it can never be colder than the ice you put in it, while a compressor keeps working as long as it has power. Here that power is a removable 288Wh LiFePO4 battery, and there are two bays for it. One battery runs about 52 hours, two stretch to roughly four days. Two sensors read the temperature inside and outside and set the compressor and a lid-mounted fan between them, with Smart mode balancing the pair automatically, Eco switching the fan off entirely to save charge, and Max driving both for the fastest chill.

Recharging comes from four directions, though the solar panel and the car socket only work while a battery is sitting in the bay. The other concession to reality is the chassis: six-inch wheels and a retractable handle, which is what turns a fifty-pound box into something one person tows across sand or gravel. A phone app reads charge and temperature from a distance, and the lid fan pauses by itself whenever the door opens, so the cold air is not being blown out at the exact moment you reach in.