Juice up your Apple Watch with the wiPowerBand
One of the biggest complaints about Apple Watch has been the short battery life of the device. Apple claims the wearable will deliver 18 hours of moderate use before entering Power Reserve mode, and that has quite a few people unhappy. I knew it would only be a matter of time before battery extenders hit the market for Apple Watch, and the first wearable power band has just been announced: the wiPowerBand.
This patent-pending design features a compact battery and wireless power transmitter embedded in a sleek molded unit that fits under your Apple Watch. You continue wearing the smartwatch on your wrist, and wiPowerBand provides that extra boost of energy to keep your timepiece juiced up for as much as double the battery life of the stock Apple Watch.
Interestingly, the wiPowerBand itself is charged using an Apple Lightning power cable, the same cable used to charge the iPhone. This is fantastic, since it means you don’t need to travel with multiple chargers and cables. The wiPowerBand is available in 38mm and 42mm sizes and several colors to accessorize your Apple Watch.
The great thing about wiPowerBand is that the sensors in the Apple Watch will continue to work even when the battery is attached. “I’ve actually tested it against an Apple Watch, and can verify 100% that it works,” says Thomas Giannulli, inventor of the device.
The Apple Watch preorders began on April 10 at 12:01 a.m. PDT, and the wearable quickly sold out of its initial stock. For those lucky enough to get their orders in at the head of the line, Apple Watch will begin arriving on doorsteps on April 24. One outside firm has estimated that the first weekend of preordering saw as many as 1 million Apple Watches sold.
Preorders for the wiPowerBand are available now via the company’s website, with planned delivery to customers in May or June 2015. The retail price for the wearable battery extender starts at $89.
