LockedUSB adapter is a product from Kickstarter project. The idea is to protect people from the danger of public chargers. In airports, hotel rooms or other places outside our home, we often see USB plug to charge our devices. But is it true that those USB ports are actually providing power only? Smartphone chargers use the same port as data transfer. So the public USB ports that seem harmless can actually be used to (potentially) access our data. Surely our device’s operating system will have some sort of security protection to prevent that. But let’s be realistic, any software can essentially get hacked. It’s just a matter of difficulty level.
Another reason behind this unique adapter is to make sure our device gets the most efficient charging by drawing the maximum power allowed by the device’s hardware. Even though there are other products to help with this, it’s still a good additional feature.
The third reason for me to back this project was the idea that sometimes we want to charge our devices (smartphones or tablets) with a computer other than our home computer. For example I sync my iPhone to my home desktop computer. But I also need to charge it at work computer and at my laptop. Having an adapter that will only allow power to go through (no data connection) will help me to charge faster and without answering dialogs about sync.
So, three reasons to support a project and finally received the product. Does it deliver? Well, yes and no.
First, the product arrived late. It promised February 2014 delivery but I just received it on May 2014. Second, the actual adapter looks different from the picture shown in Kickstarter page when the project was looking for backers. The initial design was a slim and compact adapter. What I get here is a bulky and ugly adapter. It’s too thick, it’s rather heavy, and it blocks the adjacent ports when I use it with my laptop.
The main functionality works fine. I plugged it to my computer and it does charge my device without any data transfer. The “efficient charging” was rather hard to measure (admittedly doable but I’m just too lazy to do that). At home I usually charge using Apple wall charger (so it’s already “efficient” charging anyway). At work I simply don’t have time to measure charging duration as I always move around, do stuff and sometimes take my phone off the charging cable before it’s fully charged because I need to carry it somewhere.
Together with adapter, I also receive a 3-in-1 cable to charge my devices. It has micro-USB, Apple’s 30-pin connector and Apple’s lightning connector. I read that some other backers got warning messages on their iPhones when charging with lightning connector (the usual warning for non-MFi certified cable), but I personally don’t see the warning message in my iPhone with iOS 7.1.1. The cable looks ok, and it’s a nice extra for the $19 I paid for both the adapter and the cable.
Overall, I don’t like the product because it’s getting too bulky compared to what’s initially promised. However, I can’t really complain because the main functionality works. I will probably just leave this adapter at work desk and keep it there.
Thank you for your review, I appreciated all the feedback, we are already working on Mark II which will be about half the size and will have an LED indicator for Low, Normal and High Power.