There's so much AI-powered nonsense at CES that it's kind of refreshing to see a very straightforward, classic gadget like the Swippitt. It's a breadbox-sized hub that contains five battery packs that can fit into a a custom-made iPhone case. When the battery is in the case, it works like similar product, keeping your phone juiced up. The trick is that when the battery is empty, you pop your phone into the top of the box and it automatically removes the battery from the case and drops in a fresh one.
Keeping our phones charged up is definitely a problem, but it's fair to ask whether Swippitt is an over-engineered (or possibly too expensive) solution. For $450 you get the Swippitt hub and five batteries, but you'll also need to purchase a separate $120 case for your iPhone. The team is making cases for the iPhone 14, 15 and 16 series and is also working on ones for Samsung as well. If you're intending this to be a family solution for multiple phones, things could get pricy fast.
That said, there's something charming about having a little box that can just drop a fully-charged battery into your phone case in seconds. I wish you could see the inside and actually see the batteries change — maybe we'll get a transparent model in the future. Naturally, there's also an app that'll let you check the status of all five batteries, whether they're in the charger or out being used. Parents can even get alerts for when their kids' phone drops below 15 percent.
Probably the biggest challenge for Swippitt is keeping up with phones as they get slight tweaks and revisions every year that change their dimensions — and, more importantly, their batteries. Phone batteries will surely keep getting larger and require more power to recharge, so Swippitt will have to stay on top of both case design and battery pack design. It feels like a lot to ask for a small start-up, but they've already contended with such changes — Apple's addition of a dedicated camera button to the iPhone 16 series meant they had to quickly redesign the case.
As for availability, Swippitt says it'll start shipping initial orders in April, but it expects it'll take a few months from there to get fully up to speed. And while the $450 price tag is steep, Swippitt is offering 30 percent off initial orders in January, plus you can grab a $100 off early CES discount through January 17, which considerably changes the financial equation. If you're hard on your phone's batteries and want to keep it juiced up without ever really giving it a thought, that convenience might be worth the cost.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/the-swippit-hub-keeps-your-iphone-loaded-up-with-fresh-batteries-041320116.html?src=rss
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