Best smart wallets with the built-in powerbank

Can you imagine the feeling of lost opportunity once your battery got drained? Missed call from new met girl around 4AM at the party or new business lead that came to you in the middle of your trip. All this can spoil your day.

Forgetting the power bank is a new normal.

A while ago at https://bit.ly/tau_indiegogo – very successful campaign shows how people like simple solutions. The Tau product raised more than $600 000 for a small powerbank with just one function – simplifies your daily routine. Pushes you to hang out the keys in one place – the one with a plug so your powerbank can be always ready.

This shows that we – the people don’t like forgetting our gadgets/powerbanks! It makes us angry when already bought support for our iPhone/other smartphones is left behind.

If you focus on what you left behind, you will never see what lies ahead. ― Gusteau, Ratatouille

So what can we do, to make our life more productive?

There are many ways of doing so, but the best is to have at least two extra functions embedded inside the wallet and keys. It took us years to keep remember checking if the wallet is on us not to mention the keys. This habit is strong, strong enough to make a use of it.

When you carry your smartphone, sometimes you keep forgetting the wallet. This happened to me recently. Last year I had a train trip to my partner. Purchased tickets online and put them inside the app. The day of travel came and happily sat on a comfy seat indulging in a biographical book about Steve Jobs. The blessing of reading got charged with a conductor visit. Ironed uniform and the polite look was only misleading gesture before setting my mood into the opposite.

Given a ticket that was visible on my smartphone was not enough. The conductor asked for the ID which was kept inside my wallet. Yes, the wallet that was left behind! There was no excuse I had to buy a ticket again. This spending was not an issue, but the looks of the passengers that I shared the cabin, destroyed the peaceful mood I was in.

Since then I kept looking for a wallet that could be:

• Slim (at least not another brick of plastic powerbank)
• Had super powers like reminding of leaving it behind, easy search on a smartphone map, the buzz that was loud (90dBi) at least and was hand made. And yes with painted corners.
• The app had to be without any logins, passwords – just had to work!

There was no such wallet apart of expensive Volterman that came with GPS and $238 price tag. So I decided to make one based on our flag wallet – Wallet Glow Smart functions and the app.

This new wallet we called – the Juice Wallet.

The world before Juice Wallet.

At the beginning was just wallet and powerbank. Call it smart wallet is too much but it brings one thing – with a wallet you will never leave it behind. Check first this brand – Hellonomad

This great wallet makes you feel special, but not smarter. It comes with a 2400 mAh battery that longer your calls for about 9 hours. What can not bring – it’s feeling that level of juice is not visible inside the app and one more thing – forget about it once you are not an owner of Apple device… Sorry Bro.

Barrady – Indiegogo new comer.

Yes, the magic is here! True magic. I keep fingers crossed to see a slim wallet with two coils, 2500 mAh powerbank. The battery that is used in all smart wallets comes from notebooks – it’s slim, fast charging but still. Make it bulky. We have tried to make one with wireless charging – check the video below – but it failed. There was very hard to find the right spot to meet the point of charging the wallet and the smartphone.

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Our first prototype Woolet Juice looked great, but to have a really good experience we had to put there 3 coils to make sure that whatever you put your smartphone on the wallet – it will charge it.

OK, we will talk later about our Woolet Juice – let’s come back to the Barrady wallet.

Yes, it comes with the App! Based on the creator’s blog, there are two cool features inside the wallet

• NFC support for payments – as an alternative to Apple Pay?
• Reversible charging – this is cool
• Powerbank 2500 mAh – OK, but where is it?
• Upgrades to 4000 mAh

So the app

How does it work? I presume that the app and the NFC just works together to transfer money with approval? How about using Apple Pay with a finger on a button to accept it? Let’s wait for the release. I’m so curios how it will work.

OK, next will be … Volterman

The mighty Smart Wallet Volterman

Yes, it comes the Gray Wizard of Indiegogo. With more than 2.7 MLN raised dollars, Volterman took the podium in long awaiting delivery own pledges to the backers. But with all of the numbers, losing some packages or keeping people wait, can happen. What can not happen is lack of multitasking.

Volterman multitasking does not exist. So when you play some songs on your Spotify, same time you want to check the GPS direction while you driving. With Volterman is not that simple. It’s like glued some functions like charging the smartphone and use of HotSpot/GPS into two separate devices where is just one switch so you can do only one thing – yes pick one.

Never-less I love the concept, but I know that to built such complex device you have to be Apple. Hardware sucks big time. Just hope that there will come some mighty venture and invest in this wallet millions of $ so finally people that wait 3 years for this model – will receive it finally.

There is one thing that needs to be remembered. If you are using GPS, the battery 2400 mAh is not enough to keep your smartphone on the go. With one coil is not easy to place your smartphone to start charging, best is to have at least 3 coils so there is a bigger chance set the charging right.

There is one more downside of having 3some coil charging spots – they thicken the wallet… so till there is no better technology, let’s focus on the cable + smart wallet functions + slim powerbank

Another brick in the wall..

Yes, Volterman it’s a thick electronics covered with leather with some slots for the cards. It’s not a bifold wallet in my opinion. It will be if the batteries will get smaller and the wireless charging become more efficient technology than we have now.

Now comes to the Bifold Juice by Woolet

So why Woolet skipped manufacturing Wireless Charger Smart Wallet with powerbank? The answer was partially answered. People don’t want another brick kept in the pocket. They want just a wallet with extra powers. So what powers can bring Woolet Juice?

• INTELLIGENT WALLET – First wallet with a Bluetooth module, a slim battery providing you with power for up to 1 month of standby mode, and a mobile app for iOS and Android owing to which you will find your wallet in next to no time. The wallet is synchronized with a mobile app that allows you to call your wallet through it – the wallet starts to beep loudly or, the other way round, by using the button on the wallet you can call your phone that you can’t find.
• TECHNOLOGY – Woof GLOW is the first wallet using tested technologies such as Bluetooth and a mobile app with geolocation on the market. An interesting solution is a situation when your phone loses the connection with your wallet because of a too great a distance – this will launch the PUSH notification with a characteristic barking sound – Hey, come back for your wallet! Additionally, the wallet can remember its last-seen location which is helpful, for example, when leaving a car in a car park.
• MINIMALIST DESIGN – Woolet GLOW is characterized by a minimalist design and simplicity. The wallet possesses 4 card slots (each fits one card), one slot for banknotes, one quick-access coin pocket, a larger slot e. g. for a few cards, and an outer pocket to quickly access documents/cards which doesn’t require opening the wallet. The front part of the wallet features a small Woolet brand logo. Inside, there is a hidden USB-micro USB cable.
• POWERBANK – With the 2500 mAh – you can add an extra 9 hours of talk with your friends/clients.

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