You probably have a single spot at your home where you charge your Apple Watch every night. If you want to charge your Apple Watch away from home, you need another way to do so, such as bringing an Apple Watch charging cord and a USB power plug with you. But what if you don't have easy access to a wall outlet? One solution is a self-contained Apple Watch charger, and that is what I am reviewing today: the Apple Watch Portable Charger by Archeer. Archeer sent me a free review sample of this device, and I've been using it for the last few weeks. You can buy it for $35.99 on Amazon.
The device is circular in shape. It is 1 1/8" high with a diameter of 3". To charge an Apple Watch, you simply press the side button on the Archeer charger once to turn it on, and then place your watch on top of the device.
The bottom of the device has a rubber pad in the middle so that it has friction and won't slide around on a flat surface.
The Archeer device has a 1500mAh battery inside of it. Archeer says that is enough to charge an Apple Watch from 0% to 100% three times. If you press a button on the side of the device, between one and four blue lights will illuminate to give you a sense of how much power the battery has left. You recharge the battery in this device by using a Lightning cable (not included) plugged in to the port next to those four lights.
This device does not come with a charger for the Apple Watch itself. You need to supply your own Apple Watch charging cable, such as the one that came with your Apple Watch or another one that you buy from Apple for $29. I discussed this issue when I reviewed the Studio Neat Material Dock last week; because third party Apple Watch chargers are not as good as what Apple sells, you are probably better off using an official Apple cord. But since it is somewhat cumbersome to remove the charging cord from this Archeer device, you might want to buy an extra one and just keep it in this device all the time, which raises the total effective price of this device from $36 to $65.
To add your Apple Watch charging cord to this Archeer device, you untwist the silver top. Then you need to plug the USB end of the charging cord into the device — which is actually more difficult than it should be because of the awkward angle and the limited space provided. Then you wrap the remainder of the cord around the inside of the device. Finally, you place the charging end on top.
Apple makes two different types of watch chargers. The less expensive Apple Watch models (like the one that Apple used to call the Apple Watch Sport) include a white plastic charger. The cord included with the more expensive models has a white top but a silver metal on the charging end — that's the version you see in this pictures. The metal charger is a little bit thinner than the plastic charger. Accordingly, this Archeer device provides you with a thin piece of foam that you can add to the top to provide a little extra height if you are using the silver metal charger. Thus, both types of chargers will be at the right level at the top of this Archeer device.
In my tests over the last few weeks, this device works as advertised. I took a business trip to Denver and put this device on the nightstand next to my bed in my hotel room. It charged my watch overnight, and I didn't have to worry about finding an outlet close to the bed. (I've never understood why so many hotels fail to provide an accessible and unused outlet next to each nightstand!)
It is rare that I need to charge my Apple Watch during the day, especially my 42mm Apple Watch Series 2. But my wife has the first generation 38mm Apple Watch, which has a smaller battery inside, and she occasionally finds her watch going into power reserve mode at the end of the day because battery power is low. If you like the idea of having an easy way to boost your Apple Watch power during the day — perhaps because you use a 38mm model, or perhaps because you use apps that run down the battery more quickly — a portable, self-contained device like this is a nice accessory. In my tests with both my new 42mm Apple Watch Series 2 and my original 42mm Apple Watch, this Archeer charger typically added about 5% of battery life approximately every seven minutes. (That's roughly the same speed that the Apple Watch charging cord adds power to my watch when it is connected directly to a wall outlet.)
After living with this device for a few weeks, my conclusion is that it works well, but I'm not sure that I really need it. I virtually never need to charge my Apple Watch during the day, and at night when I travel I already have lots of other devices that I need to charge — iPhone, Apple Watch, etc. — so if I have to set up near an outlet for those devices, I can do the same for my watch. But of course, everyone has different needs. If you like the idea of being able to recharge your Apple Watch no matter where you are, without having to find an outlet, using a small and light self-contained device, then the Archer Apple Watch Power Charger does this for you for $36 (plus $29 if you decide to add a dedicated charging cord and you don't already have an extra one).
Click here to get the Archeer Apple Watch Charger from Amazon ($35.99)
