Clever iPhone battery case charges AirPods, too

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PodCase
Worried about losing your AirPods? Here, just in case.
Photo: Nova Technology

Where do you put your AirPods when they’re not in your ears? Eric Migicovsky kept forgetting and when he did find them, he sometimes realized he had forgotten to charge them.

So he and a couple of friends came up with the PodCase, a relatively slim iPhone battery case that holds a set of AirPods and keeps them charged. The case can do away with the need to carry the AirPods charging case since the PodCase allows for one-cord charging for both phone and ear buds.

AirPods rose out of user consternation last fall over Apple’s decision to eliminate the headphone jack on the iPhone 7 series. Fans and critics poked fun at the AirPods because of how they could just pop out of a user’s ear and get easily lost.

Once they finally hit the market, AirPods won over many of its naysayers for its sound quality, but that did nothing to eliminate the risk of losing one.

If you are prone to misplace little things, like a single AirPod, the case is available for Early Bird pre-order on Kickstarter for $79. After production, the PodCase is expected to retail for $99.

Migicovsky is the founder of Pebble Technology, which produced the Pebble Watch. He formed Nova Technology with co-founders Steve Johns, Pebble Technology’s founding industrial designer, and Avegant co-founder Allan Evans.

“A few friends and I fell in love with our AirPods. We use them constantly,” Migicovsky told Product Hunt. “But we got tired of forgetting where we put them and remembering to charge them. Checking around, we could not find an iPhone case for AirPods, so we built one ourselves.”

The PodCase has 2500 mAh internal battery, which is enough to fully charge an iPhone or provide as many as 40 charges for AirPods. It has a USB-C charging port that works with a MacBook cable with one cord charging both phone and AirPods.

PodCase
PodCase lets the user charge an iPhone and EarBuds with one cord.
Photo: Nova Technology

The PodCase has a compartment for the earbuds that juts out slightly and resides next to the opening for the iPhone’s camera and flash.

It is currently available for iPhone 7 and 7 Plus and Nova Technology will begin working on a case for the next iPhone, due to be announced next week, once Apple reveals the specs. Nova Technology is aiming for a February delivery date for Kickstarter backers.

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