When One Device is Better Than Two

Disclosure

By now you know we love our gadgets. Most of them are specifically designed for a purpose, but the other day we discovered this is not always the best solution. As an example, this past weekend we were travelling to a local auction house to hunt for some games for our Thrift Treasure series. I was driving our minivan while Nicole rode along with her nose buried in her iPad working on something for this site. The lone USB port in the van we being used to recharge one of the kids’ Nintendo 3DS, so we pulled out our portable battery backup to supplement the charge on the tablet and iPhone. Then Nicole got a call on her phone…

Those of you with hands-free calling built into their car know the hassle when the person who isn’t driving gets a call. The call still routes over the car stereo system, but the caller can’t hear a thing since the person they were calling isn’t sitting in the driver’s seat. She quickly produced her Bluetooth headset from her purse, only to find that its charge was depleted too. No time to charge it and answer the phone, so there she sat, talking on the phone as normal, but with a large battery in her lap keeping the phone alive. If only I could have gotten a photo of that!

That got me to thinking that there must be a better solution than her carrying a battery AND a Bluetooth headset that must be kept fully charged. That’s when I learned about a new product; the Fremo® Blue Point 7800mAh Power Bank and Bluetooth 3.0 Headset. This amazing little device packs both of these items into one handy unit, with the Bluetooth headset automatically charging when stowed on the side of the battery!

The red light shows when the headset is charging, and the blue LED’s denote how much charge is left in the lithium battery. The entire unit is only about the size of a man’s wallet (or an older flip phone) but with its large 7800mAh capacity, should recharge your iPhone 5 at least 3-4 times before needing to be recharged itself. And it does so in under 1.5 hours! This convenient size makes carrying it in your bag unobtrusive, and the soft-textured finish won’t damage the items surrounding it.

One thing we noticed that probably doesn’t matter to many people is the quality of the packaging this arrived in. Many of the other battery solutions we’ve looked at come in an attractive cardboard box, but this one is tightly stored in a beautiful plastic retail package designed specifically for retail sales. We’ve consistently found that when a company focuses on tiny details like the packaging, the quality of the product usually far exceeds that of their competitors.

But today, a battery is a battery and what can a company do to set itself apart besides the design (which in this example is very good)? They start by making sure the accessory is a quality piece, and this headset is no exception. Not only does it easily connect with your phone via Bluetooth, it also boasts noise isolation technology which allows for better audio, important since you’re using this on the go. And again, the fact that we should never have to worry about finding it without a charge makes this a no-brainer purchase.

If I had to find fault somewhere, it would only be with the earpiece. It fits my wife just fine, but I had some difficulty getting it to stay in my ear thanks to the rubber “handle” included that helps you eject it from the battery.

For me, it seemed to prevent the headset from securely inserting into my ear, but that might have been remedied with the inclusion of different sized rubber tips, much like when you buy music earbuds. Since I’m not normally one to use a headset and my wife is, this may have been simply a case of user error (but I’ll never admit that).

It is hard to get excited over a battery, but this one does get me tingling a little bit.  The marriage of these two gadgets is perfect and will simplify our travels by not requiring us to pack two things. Want more specs to help you decide for yourself? Hop over to their product page to have all of your questions answered. Typically on Amazon for around $45, you can save an additional $5 right now by using coupon code ZUF52TK5.

Don’t need a 2-function solution? Fremo also has a number of other external battery solutions, one that will fit your needs. Be sure to look them up on Facebook and Twitter to see what other exciting items they have in the pipeline!

Which two gadgets would love to see combined into one? (Keep it clean please!) 😉