I travel with an Anker power bank that has 2 USB-A ports and 1 USB-C port, with the USB-C port capable of PD for my M1 MacBook Air.
For the laptop:
- Nekteck GaN USB-C PD wall wart
- 6’ USB-C cable
- 20,000 mAh Anker power bank with USB-C PD and 2 USB-A ports
The Nekteck will charge the Anker or the laptop, as both use the 6’ USB-C cable.
For other devices:
- One magnetic charger for an Aftershokz headset
- One 5" USB-C to USB-C (M/M) cable
- One 6" Lightning cable
- One 3’ Anker Powerline 3-in-1 cable (USB-A to Lightning/Micro/USB-C)
- One little Apple Watch dongle (USB-A, about 2.5" long total)
I’m trying to get this as compact as possible for both air travel and general EDC. I’m also concerned about too many long cables getting bent around because they’re being shoved into a backpack.
I took this setup on a trip, and I discovered a few weaknesses. The main ones are:
- There’s only one wall adapter in the mix, which means I need to use the power bank day-to-day.
- The Apple Watch dongle only takes up 1 port, but it obstructs both USB-A ports on the power bank
- The Anker can’t charge (USB-C) and discharge (USB-A) at the same time.
So if I try to charge my USB-A devices overnight, the power bank is low-power in the morning. Which is clearly non-optimal.
I think I’d like to:
- Get wall power closer to my devices
- Shorten cables as much as possible, to make room for the first consideration
- Ultimately have 2 options for each device except the watch (i.e. 2 cables / adapters / etc. that can charge each, in case something goes wonky)
For getting wall power closer, I’m considering something like this:
For having multiple options for each device, I’m strongly considering a couple of 1’ USB-C to USB-C cables with various adapters, kind of like these:
Do y’all think I’m on the right track? Or am I over-thinking this? What solutions would you recommend / do you use?