About Van Gear Hub
Built in a Van. For People Building Vans.
Van Gear Lab exists because we got burned — too many times — by gear that looked great on Amazon and fell apart on the road. We're not a marketing agency. We're not a review mill. We're van lifers who got obsessed with finding equipment that actually holds up when you're 200 miles from the nearest hardware store.
Every product on this site has been evaluated the hard way: installed, used, stressed, questioned, and compared against the competition. We've tested solar setups in the Arizona desert and insulation in the Canadian Rockies. We've had fans die in Death Valley and batteries fail in the middle of a heat wave. Those failures taught us more than any spec sheet ever could — and now we pass that knowledge on to you.
Our goal is straightforward: help you skip the trial-and-error phase and build a van you're proud of, within a budget that makes sense.
How Van Gear Lab Started
In 2019, our founder spent three months converting a Ford Transit 148" — and about as long researching every single component. What he found was frustrating: van life forums were full of conflicting opinions, YouTube builds glossed over the hard decisions, and product review sites were clearly just repackaged manufacturer descriptions with affiliate links slapped on.
The question "which solar controller should I buy?" took four hours of research to answer — and the answer still felt uncertain. After the build was done and living on the road confirmed which choices were right and which were expensive mistakes, the idea clicked: someone needs to actually document this properly.
Van Gear Lab launched as a side project with twelve product reviews and a simple promise — never recommend something we wouldn't buy again. It grew from there. The community showed up, the submissions started rolling in, and what began as one person's notes turned into a trusted resource for tens of thousands of builders. We've since covered over 500 products across every major category of van conversion gear, and we're still adding more every week.
We're still van lifers first. The site is the project, not the other way around.
How We Actually Review Products
This is the part most review sites skip. Here's exactly how we do it — no vague "editorial standards" language.
We Buy It or We Say So
Most products we purchase ourselves — that's the only way to guarantee the review isn't shaped by the manufacturer's PR team. When a brand sends us a product for review, we say so explicitly at the top of the page. No exceptions, no fine print.
Install It. Live With It.
We don't just bench test. Products get installed in real builds and used under real conditions — temperature extremes, vibration, off-grid power constraints, the full picture. A solar panel that performs brilliantly on a clear day in San Diego needs to work in cloudy Seattle too.
Time Is the Real Test
Cheap gear often looks fine for the first month. We hold reviews until we've had enough time to see how things age — how the adhesive holds after temperature cycles, how the build quality survives road vibration, whether the customer support is actually there when something goes wrong.
Community Adds the Depth
One person's experience is a data point. Hundreds of experiences are a pattern. We actively gather feedback from our community of 12,000+ subscribers and incorporate real-world reports into our ratings. If a product has a widespread failure mode that only shows up after six months, you'll see it flagged.
What We Won't Do
We won't give a product a high rating because they pay us more commission. We won't hide a known defect because the brand is a sponsor. We won't write a glowing review of something we haven't personally evaluated. Van life gear isn't cheap, and a bad recommendation can leave you stranded, uncomfortable, or significantly out of pocket. We take that seriously.
If a product doesn't make the cut, we say so — and we explain exactly why. Sometimes that's a one-star product we tested and returned. Sometimes it's a product that was good but has been superseded by something significantly better at the same price. Honest beats diplomatic, every time.
Affiliate Disclosure
Van Gear Lab is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. When you click links on this site and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only recommend products we genuinely believe in.
Affiliate commissions help us keep the site running and the content free. We never let potential earnings influence our product recommendations — if a product is not good, we say so.
Read our full disclosure policy →