| Product: Power Strip Liberators |
Company: Sousley Sound & Communications |
| Web: www.sousley.com |
Phone: (888) 768-7539 |
| Platform: A.C. outlet |
SRP: US$25/ten
Street Price: same |
Cred Rating: | Special Award:
Neo-Luddite Tech Solution |
Life is full of small annoyances and a recurring one for any geek is the proliferation of power adapters, a.k.a. "wall warts." These nasty
little buggers are the external power supplies that convert the (relatively) high-voltage Alternating Current (AC) of your electrical outlets to the low-voltage Direct Current (DC) that many gadgets require.
The problem with wall warts is that they're usually different sizes and shapes, and they take up far too much space on a wall outlet or power strip. It's not unusual to lose more than half of the outlets on a strip to chubby wall warts.
There's no escaping them, especially if you've got a lot of gear. I own well over a dozen devices that require such power adapters, including a cell phone, cordless phone, Palm, digital cameras, musical equipment and seven different computer accessories.
Fortunately, for almost every annoyance, there's some enterprising soul willing to dream up and sell you a solution. In the case of wall warts, the solution is Sousley's Power Strip Liberators. They're stunningly simple, nothing more than foot-long extension cords -- just long enough to clear the prime power strip real estate of those irksome adapters. They're sturdy 3-prong plugs with strain relief on the female end.
A 10-pack runs about US$25, but they're also available in sets of 5, 50 and 100, with slight price breaks the more you order. Unlike similar products, this makes them affordable enough to be practical. Sousley also makes a "2x" version that lets you plug TWO wall warts into a single outlet, and these run about twice as much as the single-plug version.
There's not much more to say about Power Liberators, but there's a wonderful feeling of satisfaction that comes from having each wall wart use exactly *one* space on a power strip. I had to wipe back a tear the first time I experienced the utter sanity of it. Musician friends I've given them to have come back begging for more. And with the holidays coming up, they're ideal grab bag gifts or stocking stuffers.
- Andrew Sasaki [10/23/01]
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