My truck’s getting up in years and lacks many of the conveniences of a late-model vehicle. Forget about an in-dash touchscreen monitor — it doesn’t even have a USB port.
That means I’m stuck using a cigarette lighter adapter to charge my iPhone (which serves as my GPS on many trips). I’ve tried and enjoyed Gosin’s four-port charger, which is awesome for those rare times I’ve got a handful of devices to juice up, but that portly wonder juts out fairly far into the truck’s cabin. Like my truck itself, it is functional but slightly unsightly.
And then there’s the svelte Scosche reVolt dual car charger. Its disarming good looks have ruined me.
This flush-mount, two-port USB charger from Scosche makes an amazing difference when it comes to how my truck’s cabin feels. It sounds absurd, but not having a beefy power supply jutting an inch out of the dashboard makes a world of difference.
I probably look like a regular redneck while I’m rolling down the road, but hop in the shotgun seat and you’ll think I’m testing sleek Apple Car accessories for Jony Ive. Well, maybe not, but the reVolt dual, with its low profile and its two glowing USB ports, is just that elegant. (I like the basic black model, but it comes in three other colors to match any iPhone.)
With a 12-watt/2.4-amp rating, the reVolt dual is powerful enough to simultaneously charge two iPads (or just about any other device). And yet it’s so small it disappears into the dashboard.
I would never have guessed that a tiny bit of feng shui fine-tuning would really matter to me, but that smidgen of saved space surprises me every time I slide into the seat.
Yep, the Scosche reVolt taught me a lesson I’ll never forget (at least until I trade up to an Apple Car in a couple years).
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Lewis Wallace is the managing editor of Cult of Mac and author of our weekly newsletter, The Weekender.
He’s a San Francisco-based writer and editor specializing in technology and culture. He loves his iPhone, hates Siri, and appreciates any hardware that combines form and function.
Prior to Cult of Mac, he juggled words and ideas as culture editor at Wired.com, homepage editor at TechTV, news product manager at NBCi, copy editor at PC World, reporter at The (Hayward) Daily Review and editor in chief of EveryBody’s News in Cincinnati.
He earned a bachelor of general studies degree with a journalism certificate from the University of Cincinnati. While in school, he worked as the entertainment editor of The News Record and as editor in chief of Clifton Magazine.
He’s also a bass player, who’s recorded and performed around the United States with Those Darn Accordions, The Electric Boogie Dawgz and The Mad Maggies. When not writing, editing or laying down bass lines, he plays darts and serves on the board of the San Francisco Darts League.
3 responses to “Low-profile car charger delivers all the power, none of the clutter”
I had three of the units, used in three different cars, and all three are dead. They were bought at the same time, so maybe it was a bad batch? However, the bright LED also lit up the interior of my car at night. I replaced them with the Aukey 4.8A Dual USB car charger. It has a smaller profile than the Scoshe units, and they’ve been working since last March without a problem.
Is this an ad for the product?
The dual port in a small package could be new, I really don’t know, but I’ve had a single port with a very similar design for years.
Does anyone know of a 1 to many usb port for the car. I have a usb port but I would like to charge multiple phones at the same time in the car. I cant find one.