Best List: Udoq universal charging stand
There’s a constant war in our house for charging bricks and cables. I like to keep chargers in certain places so I know where they are — beside the bed for example. But they constantly disappear, thanks to my light-fingered kids.
It drives me bananas, which is why I like the Udoq, a universal charging stand that neatly organizes and charges between two and eight devices. It can’t be easily half-inched.
Photo: Lyle Kahney
Made in Germany, the Udoq charges all your devices along a single, rubber-backed aluminum shelf. It features a clever slot with sliding connectors for iPhones, iPads and any other similar device.
The Udoq comes in a range of sizes, and is fully customizable. Out of the box, it comes with a Lightning connector, Micro USB, USB Type-C and Apple’s 30-pin connector for older iPads and iPhones. But different connectors can be ordered online.
All in a row
We put the Udoq in the kitchen, and everyone docks their phones to charge overnight. It doesn’t quite do away with cables: Each connector utilizes its own 5-foot cable with a standard USB-A plug at the end, which must be plugged into a charging brick or computer. We’re using a five-port charging station with the mess of cables bundled together. All the Apple cables shipped by Udoq are MFI certified.
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The Udoq comes in four different lengths: 250mm, 400mm, 550mm and 700mm. The smallest Udoq will accommodate an iPad and iPhone (or four iPhones). The largest will fit an iPad, six iPhones and an iPod.
Udoq is debuting in the U.S. on Kickstarter at a 50 percent discount. Kickstarter pricing starts at 50 euros (around $56) for the small 250mm version, which will be 100 euros (around $110) retail. The largest Udoq costs 89 euros (about $100) now.
Price: $56 to $100
Buy from: Kickstarter
Udoq provided Cult of Mac with a review unit for this article. See Cult of Mac’s reviews policy and check out more stuff we recommend in our Best List reviews.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
