Corral Your Gadgets With a USB Hub
I’m a modern woman living in the modern world, so it’s understandable that I have approximately two million gadgets being used for different tasks at any time. Realistically speaking, there are times when I need to charge five different things at once, and various outlet around my house will be juicing up some device or another. At least, that’s how it used to be, before I got a USB Hub.
In case you don’t know, a USB Hub is like a power strip, but for USB plugs. Nowadays most little gadgets come with USB plugs instead of, say, two pronged standard outlet plugs. Most of us have phone chargers that look like this:
We can take out our phone cords out of these little adapters and use them to charge other stuff. I have at least 4 of these from Apple devices that I have re-appropriated to charge my external phone battery, my earphones, and other little doohickeys.
With a USB Hub, all of these adapters are collected into one spot, where you can plug in multiple USB cords and charge your whole electronic menagerie at once.
I bought this USB Hub from Amazon, and it lives in the corner of my kitchen. (I bought the grey, which as of this posting is no longer available).
I now charge all my devices in one place, which saves space and time. I rarely, if ever, charge everything at once, but here’s what it looks like with everything plugged in.
That’s a pair of AirPods (or as I call them, AirBuds), an external phone charger (reviewed here), two LED lights for taking Hero on safe night walks, and a FitBit (I haven’t reviewed it yet but spoiler: I love it). Since the batteries for all these things don’t run out at the same time, and therefore don’t need charging at the same time, I keep the cords in a little box I got at Daiso in the cabinet underneath the USB hub, and just take out what I need when I need it.
To save myself from digging through cords trying to decipher which is which, I made labels for them out of washi tape. It was super quick and easy, and now I know what’s for what in an instant.
This little charging hub project used things that I already had, so my only cost to corral it all was for the USB hub itself, which was under $20. A small price to pay for keeping all these chargers that only get used every few days in one easy to find place, and to always know where I left something that needed a power boost.
