I saw it so often — and each time the sight bothered me, being just short of sending chills down my spine…
- The sight of cell phones sitting on the floor as they charged. On the FLOOR where they might be stepped on, or a backpack could easily land having slide off of a tired backpacker.
- The sight of a cell phone sitting on a bathroom counter to charge — right by a water facet, or by the soap dish hands reach for so often, on a counter that gets wet at the hands of the various others using that counter.
Yes, even iPhones were left charging in such manners.
I come up with a trick of my own to save my iPhone from such fates. I sometimes used my Radtech ACpower charger as a shelf by plugging it in upside down so it wouldn’t fold downward. My case gripped well enough that the iPhone wouldn’t slide off my little shelf, but this only worked when no one else was around to knock it, and it was still a gamble I didn’t like to take too often.
A brilliant mini charging shelf, but it wouldn’t pack so well…
Then, while browsing in Liberia Internacional, a bookstore in San Jose, Costa Rica, I found this simple portable cell phone charging shelf — called driinn — and thought it brilliant. It is made from flexible plastic. The shelf part angels upwards just a bit to help prevent your device from slipping off.
The cost was 3,500 colones, $7. (And it sells for $7 at it’s manufacturer’s website as well.)
It was almost perfect for every traveler including backpackers and other one-bag travelers. My only concern was that due to the curve it would not pack well, so I passed up the urge to buy one that day.
Now that I am back home after my year in Central America, I looked this up at Driinn.com to see what other versions there might be. This site didn’t show one, but the back of the shelf said it was distributed by Kikkerland, so I checked there.
From the designer of the Driinn, the Bobino Folding Phone Holder. This photo is theirs, not my own.
It seems the designer of the driinn has a folding version as well!
I can’t recommend it yet because I have not tried it.
The hinge may be a weak spot and I cannot tell if this is the same flexible plastic as the Driinn.
Thus, I post this as a possibility for now, but do so without evaluation.
I hope to evaluate both and be able to recommend one because I don’t want any good people losing mobile phones as they travel.