Put a USB power port in your wall socket and watch everybody fight for it.

By John Rhodes

Newer Technologies—is that a great name or what—brought out a wall socket assembly, the Power2U, with a USB power cube built into it. Not only that, but a smart cube that turns itself off when nothing is drawing power from it, so it’s not another power-wasting zombie.

Once we installed it, in a common place (near the printers) it was adopted almost immediately by the folks in the office. They even started fighting over it, with one person unplugging another. Clearly we have to install more units.

We’ve been testing this unit for about six months now and it has worked reliably and dependably. We get power failures here at Jon Peddie Research HQ (on top of the mountain  in Tiburon; end of the line, first to go out—and the unit has weathered all the storms with no problem. It is a good rugged design.

You can find these little jewels at Amazon for $19, and as low as $17.

John Rhodes is an analyst for Jon Peddie Research