Following the unveiling of its BreakSafe USB-C accessory earlier today, Griffin has now taken the wraps off of a new Apple Watch accessory. Dubbed the Travel Power Bank, the accessory is one the of the first battery packs we’ve seen for Apple Watch and it comes in a bitesize package.
The Travel Power Bank is keychain-sized and includes an inductive charging pad for powering your Apple Watch when it is running low on juice. The pack includes 800mAh of extra power, and while that seems a bit small, it’s enough to recharge Apple Watch four times, The Travel Power Bank charges via microUSB and features a single power button for turning the device on and off.
Carrying around an Apple Watch charging dock on your keychain seems a tad cumbersome, but the idea is that it’s small enough to not add too much weight to your keychain yet be useful in emergency situations. You’ll also obviously have to have the pack on somewhat of a level and stable surface for the inductive charging feature of Apple Watch to work consistently. Nevertheless, it’s better than carrying around Apple’s own charger and wall adapter all of the time.
Griffin’s Travel Power Bank will be available in the second quarter of this year for $69.99. It doesn’t appear that the Travel Power Bank is capable of charging anything aside from Apple Watch at this point.
Furthermore, Griffin has also introduced a pair of Apple Watch bands today. The Trainer Watch Band is a sweat-proof silicone band that runs $39.99 and is made for 42mm Apple Watch models. The Trainer Watch Band will be available in black, white, red, and blue in Q3 2016. The Uptown Leather Band is a more professional option and will run $59.99 when released in Q3. It will be available in toffee/gold, black/silver, ecru/rose gold, and seafoam/silver.
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I’ll be excited about this Watch charger once they ship the PowerBlock 3 they announced a year ago. Not being snarky; I will buy this, but I don’t believe they’ll ship it when they say they will.
Nine months to bring a watch band to market? Seriously?
$70 for this 800 mAh Apple Watch charger? To me, that just seems silly. I sure don’t want a bulky thing as this dangling on my keychain. By the way, you can actually screw up the ignition key slot in your car from to much weight. People have these keychains with a bunch of keys on and it weighs quite bit. over time, that’s a failure waiting to happen!
If you need to charge your Apple Watch because you’re away on a trip, maybe not near a power source, don’t you need to charge up your iPhone also? it generally only lasts a day. My Apple Watch can last 2 days. So you now need another power pack for your iPhone to charge. OR You get a single power back, I got one for under $15 on sale at Amazon, a 10,000 mAh with duel USB ports for under $15. I can plug a lighting cable into one and a Apple Watch puck into the other and charge both at once. It’s cheaper, does both, and I can get a number of charges from it for both. A new Apple Watch charger is $30 from Apple and you know that’s already over priced as Apple things are, so $70? I mean really? That is crazy.
I just bought one of these to replace the much larger TOPVISION 4000 mAh Portable Charger that has been to India and South Africa with me. I’ve been on a number of long distance flights spanning up to 36 hours when counting change of planes and lounge time, so I need something small to keep the watch charged.
However, there is a mystery button on the device and even Griffin tech support doesn’t know why it’s there. It doesn’t seem to actually do anything.