Accell Home or Away Travel Outlet – product review
March 2013 – One of the new products from CES 2013 we got a chance to review was the ACCELL Home or Away travel surge protector with additional USB charging. This unit is targeted at the typical home or business traveler that had to deal with multiple electronic devices in their daily life. The rise to mobile device, has driven most travelers to carry as much weight in cables and chargers as they do clothes for a trip. The typical hotel room or airport has a limited number of available outlets and space for these power devices, so a compact easy to use solution is key.
Accell Homw or Away Power Plug
For a standard overnight trip, a business traveler requires the following – laptop, tablet, cell phone, bluetooth headset, portable keyboard. For recharging the devices, there is a combination of USB and wall transformers involved. The dominant interface for new devices is a USB port to charge. A standalone USB port from a charger delivers a nominal 2.1A to the device. The USB spec supports splitting this port to two connections which allows for 1.1A at each connection. This is the configuration for the Accell Home or Away, it has dual USBs that can provide 2.1A to a single device or 1.1A to two devices. Thse charge at the USB2 charging specification.
To accommodate the high current needs of the laptops, tablets and some cell phones, the travel device has 3 outlets that are both surge protected and three prong grounded. This allows for all the transformers to plugged in at one time and supply charging with use for up to 5 devices at once. Since it is a travel device, it features a fold away plug so it fits compactly in the travel bag without getting hooked on other contents.
The device worked well and rapidly charged the portable keyboard and headset from the USB ports. The device was connected with the cell phone, laptop and tablet connected to wall transformers and plugged into the device. The only challenge was finding an outlet that would accommodate the unit. All of the wall outlets worked, however there were some hotel lamp-base outlets that were inverted and thus did not allow for the placement of the device since it has the lug at tone end. With the rise of USB connectivity for the charging outlet standard, future versions may want to have 4 USB outlets, at the higher USB3 charging level, and one outlet to handle the devices without the need to carry the wall transformers.
