Three Cool Ways to Geek Out Your Wallet

Sure, your wallet is great for transporting cash, credit cards, and photos of the family dog. But what has it done for you lately? Probably nothing. Slacker!

I know: I said almost exactly the same thing in last month’s post on three cool ways to geek out your keychain. Amazingly, it’s just as funny now!

[It was never all that funny – ed.]

While you’re mulling over a kind, sensitive way to tell me it was never funny, check out these three geek-tastic tools, all of which are amazingly cool and practical, yet slim enough to slip inside your wallet. Your pocket is about to get a major productivity boost.

ChargeCard

You know how there’s never a sync/charge cable around when you need one? That’s a problem, especially when your smartphone is running low on power. And, look, there’s a perfectly good USB port right over there! If only you could somehow jack into it.

Your wallet to the rescue! Well, if it has one of these inside: the ChargeCard ($25) is a USB cable that’s about as thick as a pair of credit cards—meaning it can easily ride inside your billfold or change-purse or whatever.

The ChargeCard comes in three varieties, one each for Android devices, iPhone 4/4S, and iPhone 5. At one end sits a microUSB, Apple 30-pin, or Apple Lightning connectors. (These last two work with older and current iPods and iPads as well.) Inside lies a standard USB connector that folds out on a rubber arm. Just insert the two plugs where they need to go and presto, you’re syncing and/or charging.

Nova Wireless Flash

That tiny LED “flash” built into your smartphone may make for a decent flashlight, but as a way to brighten up your photos, it’s pretty anemic.

The Nova is a temperature-adjustable wireless flash that’s thin and durable enough to find a home in your wallet. That’s right, wireless: It gets triggered when your snap a photo with your iPhone. Just hold it up at the distance and angle you want, and in a (sorry) flash, you’ve got extra lighting.

Inside, the Nova packs a whopping 40 LEDs and a rechargeable battery, yet the whole package measures just a quarter of an inch thick.

Sounds pretty sweet, right? Sorry to say you can’t have one just yet: the Nova is a Kickstarter project that still has about a month to go, though it has already surpassed its funding goal. Now it’s just a matter of waiting for it to go into production (which should happen in February, 2014, according to the developers). Right now you can pledge $54 to get one of the first Novas off the line.

Tuls Stan

Talk about a low-tech product for a high-tech device. Tuls Stan is a machine-cut slice of steel that holds your iPhone (or any similarly sized device) upright or on its side. In other words, the Tuls (“tools”) Stan (“stand”) is a smartphone stand that slips in and out of your wallet with the same ease as a credit card.

The Stan also has a pair of cutouts you can use to wrap and manage your earbud cable and/or sync cable (though now you won’t need the latter, thanks to the aforementioned ChargeCard). There’s even a bottle opener cut into the side so you can enjoy a frosty beverage while watching a movie on your propped-up screen.

It’s not without problems, though. The slot won’t accommodate an iPhone that’s in a case, and you can’t really stand your screen sideways (i.e. in landscape orientation) without it resting on an angle.

The Stan comes in your choice of stainless steel ($22) or titanium ($33), though you’ll have to wait until October to get one: this Kickstarter project only recently went from the funding stage to production.

Have you found any other cool tools with wallet-friendly dimensions? Tell me about them in the comments section below!