My first introduction to iGo was at the Montage Laguna Moms Retreat. We were there all day and when you’re checking email and tweeting from your phone, battery life is bound to run low. I saw some of the ladies pull out their iGo Charge Anywhere chargers. One even offered hers to help my dying iPhone. I felt guilty using her power source, so I only juiced my phone for about 10 minutes at the most. I was amazed that actually was able to get me another few hours, until I was able to put my phone on the car charger. Then I knew I wanted one. I was sent an iGo Charge Anywhere along with a Power Smart Tower to try.
As a family that likes to travel, the iGo Charge Anywhere will help me keep my iPhone and La Jolla Girl’s iTouch charged on long flights. There is nothing worse than having something she’s playing with suddenly run out of battery life. The iGo Charge Anywhere is very simple to use and lightweight. Plug it in to charge while you’re at home, then toss it in your purse just in case. One charge lasts a very, very long time if you don’t happen to need the Charge Anywhere right away. It’s been weeks since I plugged mine in but I charged my iPhone 100% from it yesterday.
iGo has a ton of other products to help your travel and needs at home. Vampire power, the electricity used when appliances are switched off or in standby mode, is not a new concept in my house. In fact, it’s been on La Jolla Dad’s mind for some time. We just didn’t know how to solve the problem and, to be honest, didn’t put the energy into doing so. It seemed like a big project. After we hooked up the iGo Power Smart Tower, I felt so silly for not having looked into it prior. It took a few minutes maximum to hook all of our computer gear along with USB charging plugs for my iPhone and La Jolla Girl’s iTouch. We plugged in our computer, computer monitor, printer and speakers into the “green plugs” that they are powered down when everything is turned off. When I turn on the computer, the green plugs wake up and everything powers on as normal. The Power Smart Tower has “always on” plugs that don’t get powered down, for items that need to remain on such as our wireless modem.
La Jolla Dad was convinced that we’d notice a very slight savings on our electric bill, because so many of these electronics were usually on all the time. Based on our usage in the house last month, there probably was a savings of a few $$ in there somewhere. The other thing that I love about the Power Smart Tower is this. It sits in a cabinet with my desktop computer box. Though we leave the door open, that space used to get hot. Since the Power Smart Tower arrived, the average temperature inside that cabinet has dropped noticeably. This alone, makes us very happy.
As I do put my money where my mouth is, we just bought a few iGo Power Smart Walls. Even though we’re getting solar panels, we’re still putting things like this around the house. Depending on your system, solar panels power your house when the sun is out. At night, depending on how much power you can “store” from your day time sun, you’ll still need to pull power from your electrical grid. So I guess what I’m saying is that even when you have solar panels, it’s not like you should be using power at your leisure. Anyway, we have a plasma TV in our bedroom. Leaving it in standby mode uses as much energy as when the TV is on. Problem solved with iGo Power Smart Wall, which has four outlets and is also a surge protector. Just don’t plug your DVR into the green outlets as it will power the DVR down when not in use. That’s a problem if you want to DVR a show. Plug the DVR into one of the Power Smart Wall’s always on outlets.
We will definitely be buying more iGo Green products. I believe that my laptop battery life would have been saved by using the Laptop Travel Charger rather than just perpetually leaving it plugged into a regular outlet.
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Twitter: Jen_eration_X
July 6, 2010 at 8:54 am
Very cool! I will see if I can find one for my Droid.
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