The Gear for the Future: Innovating the Outdoors The Gear for the Future: Innovating the Outdoors

By Graham Hiemstra

The most forward-looking gear on the market makes any trip a space-age excursion.

1. EBIKE: Specialized Haul ST
A playful workhorse. With a 60-mile range, cargo capacity of 419 pounds and options for tons of racks and a child seat, it puts the fun in functional.

2. VISION: Ray Ban MetaSmart Glasses
Meta AI voice search. Music and GPS direction streaming. Phone and video calls. High-quality photos and videos. All hands-free, in an iconic silhouette.

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3. HEAT: Nomadic Supply Company
Deliver dry heat to overland vehicles, Sprinter vans, campers, RVs and rooftop tents with this extremely rugged portable air heater. Compatible with kerosene and diesel fuel.

4. SOLAR: Jackery 200W Portable Solar Panel
A reliable, weatherproof power source perfect for outdoor travel and off-grid living.

5. AUDIO: Turtlebox Gen 2 Speaker
When you really want a soundtrack of your own, this water-drop-and crushproof Bluetooth speaker is one badass solution.

6. PACKING: Sitpack Octo Max Carabiner
With 20+ features—from screwdrivers and wrenches to bottle openers, knives, and a bottle opener—this is your ticket to living like MacGyver.

7. GPS: Suunto Vertical Watch
A GPS watch for design lovers, featuring fitness and health trackings, topographic navigation, solar charging and more with industry-leading battery life.

8. SHELTER: Kammok Crosswing
Deploying in just three seconds, this innovative awning is the perfect solution to sudden downpours and scorching mid-summer sun.

9. POWER STATION: Goal Zero Yeti 1500x Power Station
Goal Zero owns the outdoor portable power supply game. With this beast, capable of powering a full-size RV or van build, you’ll own the campground too.

By Jay Bouchard

The automotive world is going electric. Batteries are replacing gas tanks. Fast-chargers are replacing pumps. And yet questions remain. How far will this thing go, anyway? When will charging up be as quick as filling up? And when will EV truly embrace RV, and vice versa?

The future—with long-distance electric travel and fast charging for large vehicles—is nigh. The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program requires every state to build fast-charging stations every 50 miles along interstates as soon as possible, transformative in the near term. The more distant future may not depend on charging stations at all.

Enter ... the electrified road.

Dr. Thomas Stout, who helped develop the world’s first commercially available wireless charger for light-duty vehicles (think: a charging pad for your smartphone, but in your garage) works with states to plan for dynamic wireless power transfer systems. In plainer English: roadways that charge vehicles as you drive on them.

“The use case for wireless charging on highways is not necessarily passenger vehicles,” Stout says, who works for engineering and architecture firm HDR. “It’s long-haul trucking. That industry doesn’t want to give up capacity for batteries.”

And that’s good news for RVers. If interstates can wirelessly charge 18-wheelers, the technology will naturally adapt to something like a motorhome. Of course, implementing it will neither be easy nor cheap, especially in a country that has a hard enough time repairing potholes and bridges. Electrified test roads have been built in Michigan, Utah, Florida, and elsewhere, but it might be decades before the technology goes mainstream.

Will we see it by 2050? “It’s possible,” Stout says. “I don’t think it will be sooner than that.”