2007-07-23

Conquer Cord Clutter

My latest simplification involves taming cords on the kitchen counter. I saw the Socket Pocket and had to have one. I don't know why the comments on sites like lifehacker seemed to hate it so much. Are cords on the counter that big of a deal? Yes, when cats play with them. When kids yank on them. When you can't set groceries down because there is a cord pile in the way. These are all problems I don't want to have. The Socket Pocket is simple, not too ugly, and it gets the job done.



That's my wife's cell phone, and now it lives nice and tidy on the wall. The second one (they come in packs of two) is in the garage holding my bicycle light so I always know where to find it and it is charged and ready to blaze the night.

There are a few things I would change about the Socket Pocket. First, I'd change the construction and design and have it come in one piece. Currently in ships in 3 pieces -- the plate, the pocket, and the bottom of the pocket. The pocket is actually flat and you have to bend it to shape and slide it into slots on the plate. It works, but it is flimsy. Mold the pocket and plate in one piece. Having the bottom a seperate snap-in still makes sense the way the fingers in the bottom can flip up and snap back down. Second, give us something other than white plastic. I think stainless steel would be nice. Plenty of folks have stainless steel appliances these days, so stainless would fit in the kitchen nicely and it wouldn't look bad in the garage either.

2 comments:

Jason said...

I saw, and thought it looked really useful too. I have held off on buying it only because I think I may want to support more than one device.

---ryan said...

There's probably room for two thin devices. In the picture, it looks a little more crowded because I put all of the extra cord in the pocket as well. They recommend you bundle the cord and hang it below the pocket. I'm doing this in the garage because my bike light needs the whole pocket space.

One other cool feature is a notch in the top of the pocket that holds the end of the charge cord when the device is away. This saves you from digging in the pocket when you are ready to plug your device back in.

I also considered one of these as a simple notepad holder.