Obviously keeping one's bag o' tricks nice and juiced up pretty much all the can be quite the chore. Unfortunately it usually means a fistful of AC adapters to carry around as well. Leave it to the Japanese to come up with an elegant solution to this problem: simply combine the universality of a wall charger with the portability of
USB cables, to charge your iPod along along with your wristwatch (or any other USB-powered devices you may own) directly from any wall outlet without any
magic hackery,
battery packs,
solar cells, or
go-betweens. Still, we're not 100 percent sure how many USB ports this thing has (it appears that there's only two), but the convenience of having 'em is probably well worth ¥1,270 ($11) to the traveler ever on the go.
posted Oct 7th 2006 11:10AM
holy gadgets, batman!
is that a usb watch?
...or simply make devices with easily user-replaceable batteries. People that are travelling often won't need to seek the nearest power point (or USB port) so often to avoid the single embedded (non user-replaceable) battery running flat.
Hmm, Apple iPod wall adapter with one USB port - $29. This one, with two USB ports and an LED - $11. Too bad it isn't white.
now if only I could charge my laptop via usb, then use the usb ports on my laptop to charge other devices
Redundancy!
Links for "magic hackery" and "battery packs" are broken
Yeah - I just use my laptop. Plug the laptop in and you not only charge it, but four other USB-powered items.
If only they could make it where the laptop wouldn't be on - say, just push a button to send power to the USB ports. That would be convenient while traveling - if my MP3 player needs juice but I don't want to waste battery by turning my laptop on, you could just press the button and charge through USB.
it's nothing more than a powered usb hub.
lawlawlaw i want a usb watch
These things have been around for ages. Just only in 1-port varieties.
I'm AUSTRALIAN, and you know that when Australia's had soemthing for ages, then America's had it since 1950!
Taylor: That's not the point. This is one power conversion for two devices. It's efficient. It buggs me that the three USB hubs on my desk require three power bricks instead of one with three cables. I was going to ask if anything like this existed but Engadget answerd that before I could. I'm still hoping to find a unit with more ports. You see, I bought some charging station thing at CompUSA that has sliders to configure it to grip your cell phone, GBA, MP3 player, etc on top of the unit with all the chargers safely stored inside (only a small tail of a wire sticking out). Unfortunately, it's short and it doesn't have many outlets. But that's not really a problem, because I have USB chargers for most of my devices that use the generic charging "dock." I even have an adapter that adapts one USB charger to charge my DS, DS lite, GBA SP, and GB micro... Funny. I mean, how many people actually have so many redundant devices? I guess I'm not Nintendo's only b!tch if they can actually sell this. If only my RAZR didn't require a proprietary charger or driver to charge through the mini-USB. :( Now, when I was going to ask about one plug that can charge multiple USB devices, I thought about plugging in a powered USB hub with no host PC. Would this work? Sounds a little better than buying a few of these.
i don't understand why a watch is usb...
What ever happened to originality? It's a black Apple power adapter with 2 USB ports. They couldn't make it flat, or circular or something less obviously copied?
Give me a break. It may not be original but it's not an Apple knockoff. It looks like EVERY travel charger ever made. People like you give Mac users a bad name.
> What ever happened to originality?
Did you read the article? This is basically AC-to-USB adapter. Apple has nothing similar on product list. Though, Apple still ships external power supplies with its products. Unlike cheap-o-PeeCee manufacturers.
I need such one for my non-iPod. :(