I saw the 3-in-1 Foldable Wireless Charger advertised on the MacWorld site a few months ago, and I thought it might alleviate a problem. What’s the problem to be solved, you ask? It’s simply that I am really tired of having to pack a variety of different cords and plugs — not to mention adapters for foreign lands — when I go anywhere. Add to that the mess of cables on whatever flat surface I can find for charging my iPhone, my Apple Watch, my AirPods Pro, and my iPad. So, if I can charge three of those via one cable, it’s a win!
The 3-in-1 Foldable Wireless Charger in either black or white isn’t exactly cheap, even when it’s on sale as it currently is at $45; the normal price is $60. But I figured it was worth a try. The single cable is USB-C to the device and USB-A to your own wall plug. The whole thing folds up into a square approximately 3” x 3” x 7/8”.
Unfolding the device gives three charging areas, including a MagSafe for the iPhone, another area for the AirPods, and a center one for the Watch. This last one has a built-in puck that can lie flat or be raised so that nightstand mode can be used on the Watch.
One other feature is that it can fold into a pyramid with two sides exposed for a different way to charge and view a device at the same time.
My husband and I recently traveled to Europe, and this charger worked as advertised, so I’m happy. I didn’t actually leave any of my cables behind this time, though; I wasn’t truly convinced that things would work as planned, so I decided on a belt and suspenders approach and took everything. However, that won’t happen again! I’m already taking some of my cables and plugs out of my travel case!
Allison here – I noticed that Sandy never said the name of the company that makes the 3-in-1 foldable wireless charger, but I figured out why. As she mentioned, she found it on the Macworld site, and you have to read very carefully to find the tiny text that says it’s made by Tech Zebra. I looked for a direct link to the Tech Zebra site, but they evidently only sell through third parties. She found it on the Macworld site, so that was the perfect link to use.
I just bought one from the Macworld site and…
It is different: not foldable, but has a “nightstand”-like feature for charging the phone and watch.
For some reason they supply a USB-A to USB-C cable. The specs say that it can charge the phone at 15 W down to 5 W. I didn’t think a USB-A charger would put out 15 W, so why provide such a cable that only plugs into a low-wattage charger? The device input is >9V, 2A, so with the right wall charger and cable you can get the max wattage.
You can put a phone on the headset charging area, but specs say it charges only at 3 watts. Maybe better than nothing if you need it.