A Great New Gadget Helps Forgetful Frequent Travelers (Like Me)!
I love multi-purpose gadgets. I carry a ton of stuff in my backpack, which adds up to a lot of weight. Multi-purpose gadgets help me cut down on weight in my backpack (like the small charger I’m testing right now that charges my laptop, iPad and iPhone at the same time).
The latest travel gadget is one I’m still not entirely sure I’m going to travel with (though I’m pretty sure I will). Meet Zus:
Just a travel charger, right? No, not really.
It does three cool things:
- It charges super quick. It reportedly charges two iPads at the same time and at high speed.
- It features reversible USB slots, which means you don’t have to fumble with the cable to make sure it’s aligned correctly.
- It tracks where you parked your car.
Work with me for a minute. I’ve been on the road 23 of the last 25 weeks. I park in the same parking garage every week at Dulles airport. Obviously, never in the same spot and rarely on the same floor.
This may sound stupid, but I frequently walk back to where I think I parked my car and it’s not there. And, it’s absolutely where I parked my car. Just not on my most recent trip. Seriously, I’m that guy who wanders around the parking lot trying to remember exactly where I parked.
The garage offers these little cards that will tell you what floor you parked on, and I could take a picture so I have a vague idea of where I parked.
Or, I could just open the Zus app, and it will use GPS to locate my car. It took me longer to get the Zus out of the package than it did to install it, but the whole process took less than 10 minutes. Because it’s using GPS it’ll track the car from far away.
Right after I realized how much this would help me when I travel, I recalled this story by View From the Wing where the American Airlines app caused him to lose track of his car and miss a meeting.
I don’t generally carry a car charger when I travel anymore. I already carry a portable battery to charge my phone. Since it charges my phone just fine and many of the rental cars I get have USB ports, I’m still on the fence whether I need this in my backpack. But, it’s now a staple in my car at home. The app does a few other useful things, like tracking when you need to pay for parking with an alarm.
They’re $29.99 on Amazon, which is probably a bit pricey for just a car charger.
Good thing the Zus is not just a car charger.
Oh, and I earn a referral credit if you click on my Amazon referral links above. If 10 people buy one of these, I might be able to grab a cup of coffee at Starbucks (but not a Venti). 😉
The post A Great New Gadget Helps Forgetful Frequent Travelers (Like Me)! was published first on Pizza in Motion
GPS in the parking garage? I skip any product that needs to see the sky to work as I always park in the airport garage.
Matt, I tested it in the open garages at IAD and it worked fine.
It’s funny you wrote this at the same time I wrote I park in the same spot in garages because I can’t find my car!
Feeble minds think alike, Jeanne!
Very cool!
Now if only it could tell me what hotel room I was in. Multiple hotels each week makes it sometimes difficult to remember when coming home from dinner or the office. And boy is that an embarrassing question for me to have to ask the front desk …
David, they give you these little sleeves with the key cards, they write the number on those. 😉
I forget as well!
@David, I leave my business card stuck in the hotel-room door key slot, to help identify it.
swoopest, interesting trick. What if you can’t get the business card out? 🙂
Assuming you’re on the right floor 🙂
gobluetwo, yeah, can’t fix that.
GPS won’t get you to the right floor
Applezz13, absolutely won’t help with floor. But, still a plus for me.