Best List: FuelBox, a home and mobile charging system
There’s a secret magician lurking in our household. We never see them, but they somehow manage to disappear all our charging cables. It drives me batty. The kids, of course, deny any knowledge of the situation. Yet somehow it’s impossible to keep cables around the house. They just keep disappearing.
That’s why I like the FuelBox PowerStation, a charging system that combines a docking station/charging brick with a mobile battery pack. Both the docking station and the battery pack have built-in charging cables — both Lightning and mini-USB. No matter what, the cables can’t disappear.
Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac
Designed by a pair of Santa Barbara City College students, the $119.99 FuelBox is good for charging devices at home or on the go. The docking station plugs into an AC outlet. It’s a big, bulky brick, but it has a pair of AC outlets itself, allowing other devices to be plugged in.
On the side are two built-in cables: a Lightning cable for charging iOS devices, and a mini-USB cable that’s good for Android phones, cameras, portable speakers and the like. The cables slot into a pair of grooves on the side, keeping them out of the way when not in use. There’s also a spare USB slot for charging a third device.
FuelBox boostPack for charging on the go
When it’s time to leave the house, the boostPack mobile battery pack charges devices when out and about. When not in use, the boostPack sits on top of the docking station, where it charges up. It’s held in place by magnets.
It’s a great idea. The boostPack is always charged-up and ready to go, and there are no messy cables. We have several battery packs around the house but whenever they’re needed, they’re always dead. As long as you remember to keep the boostPack on its charging dock, it’s always good to go.
According to the company, the boostPack provides 25 extra hours of power. It has a 6,700 mAh battery, which is good for almost two full charges of an iPhone X, which has a 2,716 mAh battery. It will even provide a few hours of usage on a MacBook Pro (with an optional $4.99 USB-C adapter).
Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac
The wrap
I’m a fan. Aside from the bulk, the FuelBox is convenient and easy to use. It doesn’t tie up your outlets. It’s neat and tidy. There’s no rat’s nest of cables on the kitchen counter. Cables no longer disappear, and the charging dock makes it easy to keep the battery pack topped up until it’s needed.
If you’re like me, and there’s a cable magician in your house, I recommend the FuelBox.
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FuelBox provided Cult of Mac with a review unit for this article. See our 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 is an expert on:
Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
Apple Watch and watchOS
Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods
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.
