Oct 06 2015 0

Review: Plan V

Somewhere in December of 2014 I pledged for the Kickstarter project Plan V.

The following is an excerpt from the Flintu website, the creators of the Plan V:

Plan V works much like a car jumper cable. You simply connect a 9 volt battery to the Plan V device and then hook it up to your phone. And since these are square batteries you find in smoke alarms, they’re about as widely available as chocolate bars.

The initial delivery date was set to March 2015 for the reward I had selected, but as with so many Kickstarter campaigns this has slipped. Throughout the campaign there have been regular updates to keep everyone informed on the status.

Plan V packagingPlan V packaging

And finally this month I received my very own Plan V with a lightning connector.

Plan V closedPlan V closed  Plan V openedPlan V opened

Perfect timing since I had a short vacation coming up, the perfect time to take it out for some field testing.

Charging my iPhone 6

The following table shows the charges I have performed with a single 9v battery. The battery I used is a non-brand version from a local supermarket chain.

Before After Charge time Activities
79 % 81 % 30 min Browse internet and save pages to PDF
78 % 83 % 30 min Device not used and in airplane mode
77 % 83 % 60 min Sleep mode, 3G active

Sometimes the iPhone notices there is a charger connected for only a short period of time before displaying the message This accessory may not be supported’. Despite this message the iPhone does get charged (slowly).

Verdict

Although charging your device takes a long time, it is a nice backup charger if you did not bring an other backup battery.

One of the downsides with using batteries is that you can’t really see what charge is left in them without bringing along a battery-tester. Another option could be to use 9 volt batteries which have a built-in strip to check its charge, like for instance PowercheckTM on the Duracell Ultra Power batteries.


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