'Sunny' Solar iPhone Case Resurrected

Perhaps the third time is the charm for the makers of the Sunny solar-powered battery case for the iPhone 6.

The Sunny case was teased in May, and was launched on Indiegogo in June. Perfectly timed for summer, we featured it in our "Geek Beat" segment on Hawaii News Now's Sunrise morning show. But the campaign failed to gain traction, raising only $3,100 of its $20,000 goal. Undeterred, as I reported in September, the Sunny team moved over to Kickstarter to try again.

It made sense since the team included Honolulu's Laurens Laudowicz, who has found success on the crowdfunding platform with Juicies charging cables.

But less than a week to the end of the campaign -- having raised over $30,000 from over 100 backers -- Kickstarter abruptly suspended Sunny fundraising. Although Kickstarter explains that it suspends projects if it "uncovers evidence that it is in violation of one or more of Kickstarter's rules," the site didn't provide more details.

When I tweeted the news, @SunnyCaseCo replied that they were as surprised as anyone. "No answer from them yet," they tweeted. "Kickstarter is weird at times."

https://twitter.com/SunnyCaseCo/status/648610926237646848

"We have [sent] the support team several messages already, but only got a generic response," Sunny later wrote on Facebook "It's pretty brutal for us not knowing what's going on."

The team eventually decided to press forward with preorders on its own website. And now, Sunny has enlisted the help of ecommerce platform Shopify to officially open its online store.

"With the Indiegogo campaign being a bust in June and the Kickstarter project being canceled, we took a little hit and had to regroup," the team wrote last week. "But we decided to move forward [and] Sunny is now available for purchases via our shop."

Though regularly priced at $129, Sunny is currently offered for $79. Sunny is designed for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S, and charges a 2500mAh lithium ion battery with a dual-pane SunPower C60 solar array. For more information, visit SunnyCase.co, connect with Sunny on Facebook, or follow @sunnycase on Twitter or @sunnycase on Instagram.