The IT Nerd

My wife and I both have had chargers for our iDevices on our respective night stands. The iDevices that we charge are usually our respective iPhone and Apple Watches. Over the holiday season I gave her a ESR HaloLock 3-in-1 Wireless Charger with CryoBoost  which she absolutely loves. As a result of that, I got one for myself and decided to review it.

Now to be clear, this charger will charge the following devices:

• An iPhone with MagSafe which will charge at 7.5W.
• An Apple Watch which will charge at 5W and requires you to supply your own charging puck.
• A pair of AirPods in the wireless charging case underneath the iPhone. That will charge at 5W.

Here’s what you get when you take it out of the box.

Not pictured is the wall adapter. As you can see and as I mentioned earlier, you need to bring your own Apple Watch charging puck. I’m guessing that ESR didn’t want to pay Apple to put one that was MFi certified in, which also explains why the MagSafe charger is capped at 7.5W as that the max that a non-MFi MagSafe charger can go. But as you’ll see shortly, neither of these details matter. But before I get to that, let’s get the Apple Watch charging puck thing out of the way. So to make this work, I had to spring for the fast charging version of the Apple Watch charging puck. And ESR has a couple of really clever features that make this work:

As you can see here, you can open the base of the charging stand and you will see a USB-A port, and a USB-C port. Choosing the latter allows you to use the fast charging Apple Watch charging puck which is important if you have a recent Apple Watch that supports fast charging. In fact, I would suggest you just go out and by the fast charging puck as that is a form of future proofing.

And as you can see, you can wrap the cable up so that it is nice and neat so that it looks like the stand came that way from the factory.

Here’s the net result with the charging puck installed. It looks pretty clean.

Now the main claim to fame for the ESR HaloLock 3-in-1 Wireless Charger with CryoBoost is the aforementioned CryoBoost feature. CryoBoost in short is a MagSafe adapter that has a cooling fan. By having the cooling fan it will keep your iPhone cooler while charging. Which not only extends the health of the iPhone’s battery as heat kills batteries, but it keeps the charging speed more consistent. Which means it charges faster as a result. This despite the fact that it has a maximum 7.5W charge speed. Now the company claims that it can charge an iPhone 13 from 0 to 100% in three hours. Which is 4 hours faster than Apple’s MagSafe charing puck which while it has the ability to charge at 15W, the MagSafe puck will bring that charge speed down as the phone heats up. And it will stop charging if the iPhone gets too hot and wait until the temperature comes down to start charging again. Which means despite the fact it has a charge speed of 15W, it will charge slower because it has to manage the heat the iPhone generates while charging. When I tested these claims out, it took 2 hours and 21 minutes to charge my iPhone 14 Pro from 5% to 100% with CryoBoost turned on. That was pretty impressive and confirms what the company claims.

As for the charging puck for the Apple Watch, I used my Apple Watch Ultra to test this and it charged that as fast as the fast charging puck that is on my desk. That makes sense as this stand isn’t employing any cooling tricks to charge the watch faster. Finally, the spot for the AirPods didn’t charge my AirPods Pro any faster than any of the 5W chargers that I have scattered around my home. Again, that makes sense as the stand isn’t doing anything cooling related to charge the AirPods faster. The only thing that I have to say about the AirPods charger is that you have to put the AirPods in exactly the right spot for it to charge. Fortunately there is an outline on the charger that in daylight will help you with that. At night you’re going to have to rely on either the light on the AirPods case or the ding sound on the Generation 2 AirPods Pro to let you know if you’ve got them in the right spot. And if you move the AirPods because you toss and turn while you sleep for example, you may not have fully charged AirPods in the morning.

Gripes? I have a minor one. The fan is definitely not silent. It’s not super loud either. But you will be able to hear it, and this will keep you awake at night. Along with that, when CryoBoost is turned on, a light gets turned on around the MagSafe charging puck that will create a bit of a glow in a dark room which can keep you from getting to sleep. Fortunately you can hit a button on the stand to turn both of those off. But that takes away the ability for CryoBoost to keep you phone cool. Now that’s not really a big deal as having Optimized Battery Charging turned on will charge your iPhone to 80%, and then slow charge to 100% before you wake up. That makes heat less of a factor on your iPhone’s battery health. But still, it might have been nice to be able to make the fan a tiny bit more quiet and having the ability to turn the light off while keeping the fan on.

So this is what this setup cost me on Amazon:

• ESR HaloLock 3-in-1 Wireless Charger with CryoBoost: $70.39 CDN
• Apple Watch Fast Charing Puck: $37.96 CDN

Total cost: $108.35

I really can’t argue with the price, and the fact that I had to bring my own Apple Watch charing puck to the party. This product is well thought out for the most part and works as advertised. Thus if you need a charging stand for your Apple Watch, iPhone, and AirPods, you should give this one a look.

It’s iPhone season and as is typically the case, I’ve got a few cases to review. The first one is the ESR iPhone 14 Pro Metal Kickstand Case. Let’s dive in so that I can show you what this case offers.

From the front, the case has a lip to make sure that the phone’s screen doesn’t touch any hard surface. At this point, there’s nothing remarkable here. So let’s look at the back.

There’s a significant amount of protection for the camera module at the top. But at the bottom, there’s a metal kickstand. I’ll get to that in a second, but let’s look a the protection for the camera module:

This feature is called Camera Guard and it gives you some space between the lenses and any surface so that you don’t scratch the lenses.

Here the kickstand in landscape and I have to admit that this is a really cool feature. It really feels premium and locks into place, or you can adjust it to the exact angle that you need. It works in portrait or landscape and at no point did I feel that the phone was about to fall over. One added plus is that this kickstand combined with the camera module protection allow the iPhone 14 Pro to lay flat which fixes the main problem with the iPhone 14 models is that they won’t lay flat because of the camera module.

The case is made of shock-absorbing polymer. I haven’t dropped my iPhone 14 Pro yet so I cannot speak to how shock absorbing it is. But I can say that ESR has tried to make this case something that will take a few hits.

These raised sections on the corners are designed to take a hit on the corners.

The buttons are built into the case and they don’t feel any different than the actual buttons on the phone.

The case is really easy to hold. While the sides are mostly smooth, the back has ridges. I wish that the sides did have ridges to ensure that the phone would stay in your hands if they’re sweaty or have hand cream. But having said that, I didn’t have any concerns about the phone slipping out of my hands. The case is thin and doesn’t make your iPhone 14 feel bulky which is a win.

ESR advertises this as “wireless charging ready”. I tested this case with a couple wireless chargers and there were no issues. I also tested it with MagSafe and that worked as well. But it failed my “hang by a MagSafe charger” test as there are no MagSafe magnets that I can see.

The only con that I have is that the case picks up fingerprints. Lots of fingerprints. Thus you might want to opt for a colour other than black if that matters to you.

The ESR iPhone 14 Pro Metal Kickstand Case is $40.59 CAD and is available now. I really like this case and I would take a look at if you want a good quality case on your iPhone that gives you some cool option in terms of how it can be used.