Brunton Lightwave Multi Function Lantern
- Great lantern: 120 lumens is much brighter than we usually offer, and it’s IPX4 water-resistant with a rechargeable battery
- Decent USB charger: we can see that coming in handy when we need to charge our phones and tablets while camping
- WTF Bluetooth speaker: so of course that’s what they decided to name the “Camp Rocker” after
- Model: F-CAMPROCK-BK (they even put that CAMPROCK silliness in the model number)
Speaker All The Things
From the catalog for the exhibition WHEN TEETH WERE BLUE: ARTIFACTS OF THE EARLY CYBER AGE, published by the Museum of Primitive Implements, New Chicago, Alaska, in the year 2178:
In retrospect, the Brunton Lightwave Camp Rocker Lantern, while little noticed at the time, marked an early apex in the 21st-century mania for wireless speakers.
The 120-lumen, lithium-ion-powered lamp was an excellent of example of its type, far brighter than most of its contemporaries in the age before the invention of uranium batteries.
While all records of the Brunton company’s existence were lost in the global blue screen of 2102, we can assume company executives thought that building a Bluetooth speaker into the lantern would set it apart in a crowded outdoor-supply marketplace.
To further distinguish this product from its competitors, Brunton also took advantage of another widespread craze of the age, adding a Universal Serial Bus (USB) charging port to the lantern. These rectangular indentations powered the “phones” that were widely used before the adoption of telepsionic implants.
Thus armed, the Brunton Lightwave Camp Rocker would have seemed poised for success. We may never know why it failed to spread among the early 21st century populace. But the several thousand intact units found in a large structure on the floor of the Texas Sea seem to indicate that, at least, it became the focus of a small yet obsessive cargo cult.