With eight people in our family, we have a plethora of phones, kindles, and tablets that need charged on a regular basis. There are a couple of areas in our home that looked like a sea of jumbled cords and were an eyesore and a source of frustration for me. When I heard about Udoq, I was excited and hopeful for a solution to our mangled cord dilemma.

The Udoq is the first patented aluminum charging and docking station that can charge up to four devices at once. It comes preloaded with four chargers for a variety of devices, including the one for older Apple devices, the one for newer Apple devices, the one for Android and Kindle products, and another one that I was not familiar with. Only two of these worked for what we needed them for, so we swapped out the ones that were not useful for us with ones that were. The product comes with instructions that are pretty easy to follow with lots of illustrations and the tool needed to remove and replace the cords. We had our Udoq station up and running in under 15 minutes.

The design is sleek and appealing to the eyes as it has a compartment to hide all the cords in so you don’t see the mangled mess of USB cords. Only one black cord to plug into the wall outlet is seen. The charging devices rest at the perfect angle to both charge and to display the devices. If needed, you can still use the devices while they are charging. The backrest that the devices rest on is very sturdy and will not tip over with the weight of the devices. The Udoq also comes with two little resting pads to keep larger devices balanced while charging.

It took us a little bit to adjust to the Udoq. When you are plugging in your phone manually to charge, you have the benefit of the tactile feel of knowing your phone is charging and can move both the phone and the charger to get it right. With the Udoq, the cord is completely stationary, so you can only move the device around to get the correct angle and it is harder than it sounds to get it just right. We adapted quickly, however it is worth mentioning that this is something that you may have to get used to. Another minor critique would be that I wish that a couple more of the balancing pads were included to help balance larger devices or were available for purchase a la carte.

Overall, I love having a place where all of our devices can charge in one location. We have more than four devices that need charging, but we have figured out a system where some charge overnight and some charge in the evening so everything gets charged in one place. This has helped us with our efforts in having our kids turn over their devices to us in the evenings so we can monitor their usage. We can see in the blink of an eye which devices are not there. It has been so helpful to have a central charging station and have it look so beautiful and organized. I would definitely recommend the Udoq for families who want a central location to charge their device and that is easy on the eyes.

-Product review by Audrey Tolle, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, June, 2018