Awesome Stuff: Taming Unruly Cables

from the wires-wires-everywhere dept

Sat, Aug 17th 2013 9:00am — Mike Masnick

While wireless technologies are amazing, it still seems we're stuck with plenty of cables around all the time, from charging cables to headphones and more. Most people don't do much to organize them, or they go with the simplest route. Personally, I've been using twist ties to keep cables organized on my desk and it seems to do the job. I know there are a bunch of cable organizer products on the market already, but apparently a bunch of new ones have recently launched crowdfunding campaigns, so let's take a look, for this week's awesome stuff post.

First up, we've got the QooQi, which is a simple device for your desk to organize cables. You have to watch the video to understand how it works, but it's a very simple and intuitive way of organizing your cables and keeping them in order. It has a nano pad on the bottom to help it stick to flat surfaces easily. The project is already just slightly over its $10,000 goal, and has more than three weeks to go, so chances are it will get at least double the goal.
Next up, we've got the Kordl, which is a very, very simple plastic device that connects to your headphones to keep them from getting tangled. It doesn't tie them up entirely, but rather just connects the two ends to each other, which prevents tangling. As they explain, they're using the "rubber band vs. spaghetti theory" in that single strands, such as spaghetti, get easily tangled and tied up, where as loops, like rubber bands, tend not to get as tangled (they haven't seen my rubber band drawer... ). This one is also well past its target of $7,500, with about two more weeks to go. Personally, $5 for such a simple bit of plastic seemed a bit on the steep side, but I'm sure people sick of tangled ear bud cables might find it worth it to avoid the annoying process of untangling.
If the Kordl isn't really what you're looking for, there's an alternative, called Loop for organizing a variety of cables, including ear buds, but also power cables, USB cables and more. It's also a fairly simple concept, but executed nicely. Basically a simple attachment to the cable that makes it easy to wrap up our cables when you're done. My Thinkpad power cable comes with a similar velcro strip, and I always wondered why so few cables came with something similar, so the Loop looks like an easy way to retrofit other cables to do the same sort of thing. This one has only raised about $1,000 out of $5,000 targeted, but there's still a month to go. Again, the pricing here seems slightly high -- $10 for two -- when it feels more like $10 should get you a pack of four or five of these things, but again perhaps I underestimate the demand and the production costs. One other oddity, it appears there's a nearly identical campaign to the Kickstarter campaign, except it's over at IndieGoGo, and it's raised no money at all, with just a week to go. It's not unheard of to see projects appear on both major crowdfunding platforms but it does seem like a relatively rare occurrence. Even more bizarre: the pricing is more expensive on IndieGoGo. No wonder it has no buyers while Kickstarter at least has a few.

That's all for this week. Stay organized.

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Filed Under: awesome stuff, cables, earbuds, organization

11 Comments

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Zos (profile), 17 Aug 2013 @ 10:02am

lol,usb chargers and audio cables. my heart bleeds. i got excited for a minute thinking there might be something i could use to tame the area between my pc/speakers at my desk to big screen with the roku, usb hub, speakers to the modem/router/livewire adaptor/external hard drive.
there is a triangle of space about 2 feet on a side, where things go to die. the cable jungle is thick, and here be dragons.
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- Anonymous Coward, 18 Aug 2013 @ 5:26pm
  
  Re:
  Ha, I clicked this link thinking exactly the same thing! Silly kids and their i-doodads.
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OldMugwump (profile), 17 Aug 2013 @ 10:25am

Wire twist ties
They come free with anything electronic (sometimes at the grocery store too).

Save in a box. Re-use as needed.

Problem solved.
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- Tydog, 17 Aug 2013 @ 12:46pm
  
  Re: Wire twist ties
  Perhaps your problem is solved, but those of us who don't want our stations looking like the hobo junction are still left wanting.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 18 Aug 2013 @ 5:48am
    
    Re: Re: Wire twist ties
    Can't you just use a twist tie to keep the ends from getting tangled? Both inventions look like they can be replaced by a twist tie to me. I kinda agree, this does look like a problem already solved?
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Aug 2013 @ 6:52pm

disappointed
I came here thinking this was an article about keeping the unruly NSA out of my Ethernet cables.
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Wm Magill, 18 Aug 2013 @ 7:41am

Velcro Cable ties
Velcro Cable ties HAVE been around for at least 15 years. (I"ve been retired for 10 and I used them as a Unix SysAdmin for years before that.

Just Google "Velcro Cable Ties" .... and lo and behold .... a pack of 100 available from WalMart for $8.46... others from $2.04 yo 12.45.
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Ninja (profile), 19 Aug 2013 @ 8:07am

My pc desk at home is a cable hell. I organize them with those plastic bracers and some regular tube-like organizers. I say we should focus on researching efficient and durable batteries (or compact power sources). This would also help with future endeavors towards Mars and beyond. I wonder if we'll see such a thing in the next 50 years?
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Aug 2013 @ 7:22pm

[Meta] How to make kickstarter embeds show with NoScript?
Does anyone here know how to configure NoScript not to completely hide the Kickstarter embeds on the weekly Awesome Stuff posts? "Temporarily allow all this page" does nothing. I don't even see Kickstarter there, nor placeholders, nor items under Blocked Objects. Iframe blocking off doesn't help. Firefox's object inspector shows the iframe and contained html, head, and body elements but shows the latter two as empty. Manually going to Kickstarter and adding it to Noscript's trusted site list doesn't make the embeds show on Techdirt pages either. I'm probably missing something "obvious", but I can't find it, and googling availed me of nothing. So ... anyone?
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Choose Effective Steel Cable Ties, 19 May 2014 @ 5:36am

Cable Marking
Superb! These are the best launched products to organise the cables on the working desk. Thanks for sharing this useful information.
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Gary Jones, 5 Jan 2019 @ 12:41am

They come free with anything electronic (sometimes at the grocery store too).

Source : https://distantinfo.com/playbox-download/
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