As a LEGO fan and an Apple Watch owner, I had heard about people building their own Apple Watch charging stands with LEGO blocks. When SwitchEasy came out with its Blocks Apple Watch charging stand, I jumped at the chance to take a look at it.
On paper, the SwitchEasy Blocks charging stand sounds great. It includes a form-fitting cradle to hold the Apple Watch in place; it is bumper friendly in case you put your watch in a case; and it can use bricks from various manufacturers, including LEGO. The kit also contains two different charging clips to hold either the plastic-encased charger for the Apple Watch Sport or the thinner metal-cased charger for the Apple Watch and Apple Watch Edition.
The stand was more difficult to assemble using the enclosed directions that I anticipated. The instructions were confusing, even for me, and I’m an experienced LEGO builder. Combine that with missing parts and parts that were a different color than the in the instructions, it took me a lot longer than usual to finish.
The bricks were a little stiffer to put together than LEGO bricks, but they stayed together. (Some non-LEGO bricks have a tendency to fall apart easily.) However, once built, the stand was unstable. The instructions give you no clue that the two small green baseplates need to be connected somehow, which meant the watch stand would tip when I put my watch on it. I fixed that issue by connecting the two baseplates with some extra bricks.
However, there was a bigger issue.
The cradle is molded to fit the Apple Watch, and the watch fits very well. Unfortunately, the charging cable threads through the back of the cradle, right where you need to put the watch strap.
As a result, the watch does not sit in the cradle. People with the Apple Watch Sport might not find a problem here, because you can straighten out the watchband, but people with loop bands might find it difficult use.
All is not lost, though.
The charging clip itself fits on top of any brick with two studs on top, so I grabbed a handful of my own LEGO bricks and built a simple charger with proper cable management. It works great.
If you want the clips to build your own watch stand, go for it. If you want to use the stand as-is, you might need to drill out a new cable management slot on a non-band side of the cradle.
Source: The product sample for this review was provided by SwitchEasy. For more information, please visit their site for more info.
Product Information
| Price: | $19.99 |
| Manufacturer: | SwitchEasy |
| Retailer: | SwitchEasy |
| Requirements: |
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That looks like fun!! Is the watch cradle only big enough to fit the apple watch naked? (or is there floater room around the perimeter?)
I’m asking because I have my watch inside the lunatic epic kit https://www.lunatik.com/epik-apple-watch-kit-aluminum
and it adds quite a bit of heft to the watch 🙂
I think it would depend on which size watch you have. SwitchEasy says the cradle will fit watches with bumper cases. I have a 38mm watch, and you can see in this picture that there is quite a bit of room around it: http://the-gadgeteer.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/switcheasy_blocks01.jpg. I’m not sure whether a 42mm watch with a case would fit. It wouldn’t hurt to contact them for advice. Their support email address and phone number is listed on the product page.