Hasta La Gadget!

Thought AT&T’s Zero charger was going to cruise along with no competition? No sirree. Ventev has shown up here in Las Vegas to launch its (seemingly superior) competitor, the EcoCharge. Designed to (nearly) eliminate vampire power draw when no device is connected, this here charger one-ups those “other guys” by having room to invigorate a pair of mini-USB / micro-USB devices (one of those, plus a full-size USB at the top), and best of all, it won’t take up 1.5, 2 or 2.5 slots on your power strip. The company claims that its approach to cutting down on vampire power drain — the energy that’s wasted when you leave a charger plugged in with no peripheral connected — is better than other solutions out there, as a unit that completely kills the power when it’s left alone requires an on / off switch or a “wake up” period before it storms into action. The EcoCharge continually pulls 0.025 watts, while Energy Star chargers can go up to 0.3 watts when not in use. Oh, and did we mention that it’s shipping right now? Indeed it is — in micro-USB or mini-USB flavors for $29.99 a pop.

We stopped by the company’s booth tonight at CTIA’s MobileFocus event, and we learned that an Apple-centric version is just weeks away from shipping. As you’d expect, the bottom plug will be a dock connector, though the USB port behind the flip panel will remain all the same. We’re told that the company will be doing its best to get the charger into Apple’s sales channels, but you’ll be forced by pay $5 more for that version over the other guys. Guess that 10 percent Made for iPhone tax hasta be paid by someone, right?

Ventev EcoCharge whacks vampire draw, charges two devices for the price of one originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Idapt’s new i4 is a charging dock for pretty much all of your gadgets. Like the company’s previous stations, the dock reduces cable-clutter, but this time it does it in shiny, piano-black style.

The hot-looking dock plugs into the mains and sits on your desk or night-stand. In the top are three virgin sockets, into which you can insert various “tips”. These are analogous to the dock inserts in Apple’s universal dock, only they also carry circuitry and connectors for various devices. If you have a vanilla USB-powered gadget, there’s a hole for that, too, hidden down at the side.

The tips fit most kinds of cellphone, the Nintendo DS, the PSP, the iPhone, all sizes of USB and one is even a charger for AA and AAA batteries. It even has an off-switch so you don’t have to yank the cord from the wall. The only problem might be the price. At $60, the i4 isn’t bad, but you’ll need to buy tips, either at around $15 each or in packs which start at $40 for 4.

The i4 also comes in white, available in May.

IDAPT Unveils i4 Universal Charging Solution [Max Borges. Thanks, Valerie!]

Idapt store [Idapt]

Solar power combined with fancy-looking cases? The perfect storm for getting an end-of-the-week mention on the Gadget Lab. Today its the turn of the Novothink Solar Surge, an iPhone and iPad Touch case with a solar panel and a lithium-ion polymer battery. Instead of just gluing some photo-sensitive panels to the back of a case, Novothink has, well, actually thought about the design.

In sunlight, the case can grab enough juice in a half-hour two-hours for 30 minutes talk time on 3G and an hour on 2G. That’s enough to make this case useful on its own, especially as outdoors is exactly the place you can’t plug in a charger. The case also has a hole for hooking onto a carabiner and hanging from a backpack — a bad idea in the city, but out in the wilderness and away from pickpockets it is ideal.

For once, the iPod Touch gets some extra love: The Touch version of the case, due to the extra space afforded by the iPod’s slim body, has a 1500mAH battery (the iPhone’s is 1320mAH). Both cases, when fully charged, will double the life of the devices. There’s even a free iPhone app to help you calculate how much sunbathing your case has to do to get you through a day. Other neat touches are the row of LEDs to tell you how much power is left and, on the inevitable cloudy days, the regular USB socket in the case means you can charge (and sync) without Apple’s custom cord.

The Apple-certified cases aren’t cheap, but for such utilitarian devices they certainly look good. The iPod Touch case is $70 (on offer right now at $53) and the iPhone version costs $80.

Surge for iPod Touch [Novothink. Thanks, Matt!]

Surge for iPhone [Novothink]

See Also:

• Personal Solar Panel Twenty Time More Powerful Than Rivals …
• LG's Solar-Powered E-Book Reader
• Solar MacBook Charger Costs More than MacBook Itself
• Solar Power
• Blue Earth: Samsung's Solar Phone Made from Water Bottles

Continue reading PowerHouse eMonitor lets you manage power use down to the circuit

PowerHouse eMonitor lets you manage power use down to the circuit originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This week’s first power-strip comes from Woods Ind., supplier of cable-based products to, well, anyone. The six-outlet strip is rated to 1625-Watts and offers a ground-pin for each plug. This is, of course, not reason enough to get onto Gadget Lab. What the strip does have is a big foot-operated power-switch so you can stamp down under your desk and kill everything simultaneously.

Unfortunately, it sports a rather nasty “comedy” illustration of a foot on the switch itself. On the other – um – hand, it only costs $21, and has the added advantage of lacking the blinkenlights that so often blight anything with a power-plug. I’d suggest you don’t plug your actual desktop computer into this device, especially if you are one of those obsessive, foot-tapping types (actually, maybe you should hook up your delicate machine to this hair-trigger power-breaker as punishment for your annoying habit).

For the kind of junk that you should switch off, but leave powered up because you are too lazy to reach under the desk, this looks like a great solution.

Woods [Coleman Cable]

Woods Ind 6 Outlet Power Strip With Foot Switch [Amazon via Lifehacker]