Accell Power Squid Outlet – product review

March 2013 – One of the new products from CES 2013 we got a chance to review was the ACCELL Power Squid 5 outlet surge protector. This unit is targeted at the home office or small office that does not use partition systems with multiple outlets for each occupant to control their electronic devices. The more and more mobile devices come into use, the usefulness of the traditional rigid power strip with 6 adjacent outlets becomes less useful. The form-factor for these power strips was designed for 2-3 prong power cords to be plugged, not multiple wall transformers. Most of the new mobile devices have a wall transformer with either a dedicated cord or a USB outlet that goes to a USB charging cable. As a result, a standard rigid 6 outlet power strip can accommodate 2-3 of these wall transformers being connected, if you are lucky enough to have multiple orientations of the chargers so they can be placed in the power strip. Typically, this is two vertical transformers and 1 horizontal, as the vertical is the dominant layout.

Accell Power Squid

To address this issue, the folks at ACCELL created the PowerSquid. The surge protected and power conditioning device features a 6 ft cord to connect it to power with a wall mount capability. The “body” of the squid is rigid and contains the surge protection circuitry along with LED indicators and power switch. The “tentacles” for the squid are 5 flexible connectors of three different lengths that end with a 3 prong outlet receptacle. The flexibility and variation in length allow for all five outlets to be used for any orientation of wall transformer or traditional power cord. Since the lines are flexible, there is no spacing constraint, nor an issue that a wall transformer will cover another outlet, making the device available for five separate power connections. The device also has a resettable circuit breaker rather than a fuse, to insure long use life.

The device can deliver up to 15A of power and features 1080 joules of surge protection. Unlike most surge protectors, this device also has a built in noise reduction filter. This is key for environment that utilize power line communication (PLC) as a networking branch, as it filters out the RF on the line from the transformers, allowing to work both more efficiently and safely. For multi-media devices connected to the unit, the “dirty” power is cleaned up to reduce noise and static in the audio and video.

The device worked well and was easy to setup and install. The device was connected to a single and dual USB wall transformer, as well as a standard power cord for a laptop without any problems. When a set of powered speakers for the computer was connected with a wall transformer, the sound was improved over direct connection to the wall, as a result of the noise filter. All of the outlets are polarized and worked with both two plug and three plug connections.

For those that have a space constraint and only a few outlets, this is a great device for connecting the many wall transformers and line cords in a small area. The power conditioning is a nice feature not normally found in a surge protector in this price point, and makes a noticeable improvement in audio and video playback on devices connected to the unit.