Adding A Little Polish To Your Cellphone Charging Setup

Cable management can really be an eyesore, but a little creative camouflage and you can have a cellphone charging station that also serves as decoration.

[Kitesurfer] wanted to use one of the cubbyholes in his new Ikea book shelf for charging but wasn’t keen on the rat’s nest of wires that would go along with it. Also not wanting to take on the challenge of wireless charging he hit the As-Is section of the home furnishing giant and grabbed a leftover board that matched the same finish as the cabinetry. It now serves as a false-back for the charging center behind which a power strip and wall-warts hide.

This covers up the problem, but a blank white box filled with the business end of the charging wires isn’t a whole to better. As with a magic show, the trick is in redirection. [Kitesurfer] cut a hole in the false-back and added the guts of a digital picture frame. Right now he’s got it scrolling through different charging icons, but it’s easy enough to change up the slide-show if he gets tired of them. We’d love to see a subsequent hack that lets the picture frame access the photos on your phone via Bluetooth.

18 thoughts on “Adding A Little Polish To Your Cellphone Charging Setup

  1. Maybe even better to monitor the currents going to the various chargers. If the battery gets fuller, the current usually tapers off and you can display a graphic that reflects that, so when you walk past it, you can immediately see if your phone is OK to go back in your pocket again.

  2. “As with a magic show, the trick is in redirection.”
    First thought was “Ahhh, that explains the gigatic red siren!” =)
    I hadn’t even seen the picture frame!
    It’s just me or anyone else thought the same?

  3. Wort – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wort – Cached
    Wort, pronounced /ˈwɜrt/, is the liquid extracted from the mashing process during the brewing of beer or whisky. Wort contains the sugars that will be fermented…

    Wall-wart… please…

  4. I was thinking of a connection via bluetooth, too. That would give a lot of cool things. But the picture-frame has a big blob of glue on it, so I can not access the controller or circuit-board.
    I think I have to get another picture-frame with more hackable-options! :D
    Battery-status of all phones, summery of new mails, SMS, calls would be it.
    This frame also serves just limited options on slide-show or image selection. That’s very bad.

    But: It sucks less energy than a normal TFT connected to a thinclient. ;)

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