Almost every day, our robot vacuum tangles itself in charging cables, which the kids toss cavalierly across the floor. Snaking from behind the couch, the cords wait like baited fishing lines to ensnare our unsuspecting Roomba. It’s an unmitigated cable management disaster.
Luckily, we just got some Cable Blocks from Function101. Cable Blocks are rubbery little magnetic blocks that sit on your desk or nightstand and hold cables out of the way. It’s a simple and clever design.
Here’s why Cable Blocks are my favorite cable management system.
Function101 Cable Blocks review
Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac
Cable Blocks are about the same size as a bouillon cube, but are made from soft silicon — and are nowhere near as tasty.
Each block has a slot on top to let you slide a cable inside. The blocks are weighted so they sit firmly on a table without any glue or screws. And they are magnetized so they stick together — or to a metal surface. (They also stick to Function101’s Desk Mat Pro, a gorgeous faux leather desk topper with a layer of metal inside.)
It’s easy to line up several blocks holding all your cables on the edge of your desk or nightstand. The Cable Blocks hold firm and keep your cords out of the reach of passing robot vacuum cleaners. They’ll keep your bedroom, living room or office a lot tidier.
I have a line of them under my iMac at work to keep all my cables neatly organized. I also use a couple of Cable Blocks in the car. They tame car cable clutter quite well.
Cable Blocks are especially good for Apple Watch chargers, which tend to slide off any surface they’re on. Likewise MacBook charging cables — without Cable Blocks, they always plunge off the table or couch.
Organize messy cables
Cable Blocks are endlessly reconfigurable. You can put together a line of cubes to hold all your cables or just use one or two. If you use a particularly heavy cable, join two or three blocks together magnetically and the extra weight will provide more stability.
Cable Blocks also come in a range of colors — navy, gray, orange, light blue and pink.
The best cable organizers
Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac
I’ve tried other cable-management systems in the past. None of them worked as well or proved as versatile as Cable Blocks.
Some other systems attach to your desk and require you to unclip cables to use them, then clip them back in when done — which no one in my family ever does. Cable Blocks are great because they stay attached to the cord. It’s easy to magnetically clip the blocks back into place when done.
The only complaint is that sometimes the blocks slide down the cable and you have to slide them back up. However, they will stay in place if the cable gets fatter at the business end, which most Apple cables do.
Cable Blocks are my new favorite cable-management system. They look cool and they keep the cables organized with minimal effort.
Pricing
Cable Blocks cost $29.99 for a pack of four. Buy from: Cult of Mac Store
Function101 provided Cult of Mac with a review unit for this article. See our reviews policy, and check out more in-depth reviews of Apple-related items. We originally published this review on April 22, 2022. We updated it with new color and pricing info.
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.
