Except for those who drive a car that has a built-in system for charging an iPhone, most everyone can benefit from a charger that plugs into a cigarette port and has a USB connector at the back. Better yet is a charger that has two USB connectors. That way you can use one port to charge your iPhone and have another port for your passenger, or perhaps another port to charge an iPad or Bluetooth system or some other gadget in your car. ZUS is a two-port charger that adds one more cool feature: the ability to remind you where you parked your car. The developer sent me a free review unit, and I've been using it for three weeks.
The basics
ZUS is a device that you plug into your car's cigarette port / power port. It has two USB ports.
Find your car
The neat and unique feature of ZUS is the location function, so let's discuss that first. The way it works is that the ZUS device talks to the ZUS app on your iPhone.
When you turn off your car, and thus cut the power to the ZUS device, the app recognizes that you must have just parked. It then uses the GPS on your iPhone to figure out where it is, and remembers that spot.
Later when you are ready to return to your car, if you don't remember where you parked, just launch the ZUS app. The app will figure out where you are and where your car was when you parked, and then give you directions for finding your car. First, there is a compass-type device that points you in the right direction and lets you know how far away your car is. This feature is pretty useful because you can just walk in the general direction indicated by the arrow, and the distance indicator changes as you get closer.
When you get very close to your car — too close for GPS to really distinguish between where your car is and where you are — the app tells you that your car is nearby. By that point you should be able to see your car.
Second, if you swipe up from the bottom of the screen, you can see a map that shows you where you are located and where your car was parked. Your car is marked by a pin with a P and a picture of a car at the top.
Technically, what ZUS does is not all that different from you manually opening up the Map app on your iPhone immediately after you park and then dropping a pin in your current location so that later on you can see where that pin is located. But of course, few folks will remember to do that every single time they park. If you are anything like me, at the time that you park you always think that you will have no trouble remembering that spot later on. Only later, when you can no longer remember, do you wish that you had done something to remember the spot. Fortunately, ZUS remembers every time, so it is there to help you whenever you need it.
Well, at least ZUS tries to remember every time. You see, if you are parking on the street, or if you are parking in a large parking lot, then ZUS works quite well. However, ZUS requires the use of GPS at the time that you park, and thus it doesn't work if you park in a parking structure and your iPhone cannot see the GPS satellite. And if you are in multi-level parking structure, even if ZUS can get a GPS reading, it is unlikely to be accurate because GPS does not work well if you are not at ground level. (My office is on the 46th floor, and the GPS always thinks that I am many blocks away from my building's true location.)
Fortunately, however, if ZUS doesn't know where you parked, the app notifies you (if you have notifications turned on) and gives you the opportunity to take a picture to help you find your car later — such as perhaps a picture of the floor and/or zone of a parking structure.
Note also that because ZUS depends upon your iPhone being close to the ZUS device when your car turns off, you cannot use ZUS to track your car if someone else parks your car without you in the car. Thus, if your spouse has your car or a thief steals it, ZUS won't help you. Having said that, this means that ZUS doesn't have any monthly service fees, unlike theft-protection systems in cars that have their own GPS and can help you if your car is stolen.
You can also use the ZUS app to send someone else the location of your car. Just tap the sharing button at the top left of the screen and select an option such as Mail or Message. ZUS will create a message that includes a link to the ZUS website and the longitude and latitude. The recipient simply taps that link to see a map with your car location on it. And by tapping one button, the location can be opened in the native Maps app on the iPhone, which lets that person use the iPhone's Maps app to get walking or driving directions to your car.
Charge your devices
Hopefully you won't lose your car very often, so as useful as it is for ZUS to help you find your car, you may not use that function all the time. But ZUS is also a very good car charger, and you can use that feature every time you drive.
I like that the back of ZUS is split so that the USB ports face the driver and passenger seat. This makes it a little easier for both people in the front of the car to access their USB port.
ZUS appears to be very well constructed. The ZUS website boasts that it is one of the best constructed car chargers on the market, with titanium coating and German engineering. It just feels like plastic to me, but that's not a criticism — the design feels nice and sturdy. The site notes that ZUS is "[t]he only car charger to meet US Military MIL-STD-810G High Temperature Standard. Temperature as high as 100º C." I hope that I never have the opportunity to test the ZUS when my car gets up to 212º F, but as someone who lives in New Orleans where it gets pretty hot in the Summer, especially inside of my car, that sounds like a nice feature.
The website also claims that ZUS has 2x the charging speed of some other car chargers. I believe that the ZUS outputs 2 Amps on each USB port. For over a year now, I have been a happy user of the SCOSCHE USBC242M, which costs only $12.28 on Amazon and which outputs up to 2.4 Amps on each USB port, which is as much as an iPad can (currently) take. So I didn't find the ZUS to be any faster than what I had been using before. However, I know that there are slower car chargers on the market so perhaps the speed will be an upgrade for you. Suffice it to say that you get a fast charge with the ZUS, although other car chargers also provide a fast charge.
In my car, I always keep both USB ports filled all the time — one side with a USB to Lightning cord that I use to charge my iPhone and the other side charging the Bluetooth hands free device in my car. But if you have one or both USB ports open at night, the ports have tiny LED lights in them. The lights are so tiny that they won't distract you while you are driving. However, the lights make it easier to find each USB port in the dark, useful if you are driving at night and someone in the passenger seat needs to find the USB port to plug something in and doesn't want to distract you by turning on the car's interior dome or courtesy light. It's a useful feature, and shows the attention to detail.
Conclusion
At $35.99 (on Amazon), ZUS is certainly more expensive than other car chargers, even ones that offer two USB ports and high-speed charging. But it offers the unique feature of helping you out if you forget where you parked your car — so long as you parked outside where the GPS function was working. If you are the type of person who would find the find my car feature to be useful, then I suspect that you'll consider ZUS to be well worth it.
Click here to get ZUS from Amazon ($35.99).
