Orange Tent features Underfloor Heating

Orange Solar Concept Tent (picture courtesy Orange)

Orange UK recently revealed the Orange Solar Concept Tent – a development of the Orange Solar Tent from Glastonbury 2003. Aimed firmly at festival-goers this tent is a tour-de-force of all things technological. Read on for more details.

When this press release first appeared on my screen the words that jumped out were ‘underfloor heating’ – but I suppose that’s only natural as we’re an underfloor heating company! But this tent has so much more than just that, the boffins at Orange in conjunction with American design firm Kaleidoscope have come up with a ‘dream tent’ for modern times.

It’s not surprising that a lot of the technology on show has to do with mobile communications – there’s the “glo-cation” feature that lights up your tent so you can find it in the dark, this works either by RFID as you approach the tent or (if you’re really lost) you can text your tent to make it light up from distance. Then there’s Wi-Fi to keep you connected to civilisation and a wireless charging station to recharge your mobile, laptop, gps device etc. And lastly, and here’s what caught our eye, there’s an underfloor heating system. The system only works at night to keep the occupants warm – I presume Orange think our British summer days will be warm enough to not need it – or the occupants will be out partying at the festival!

All this gadgetry is powered from three movable solar panels that follow the sun to generate the maximum solar energy throughout the day. These are made from a photovoltaic fabric with solar threads woven into the tent material to make lightweight moveable panels.

All clever stuff and it makes my tent seem positively stone-age in comparison. However, I think it will be a while before I see one of these pitched next to me at a camp site. When that day comes I’ll have to have a look into this Solar Tent malarkey.