The ZUS smart car charger locator first hit my radar from an email I received from the company asking if we would like to review their product. I get a lot of emails asking for reviews, so much so I have to pick and choose sometimes. The ZUS smart car charger locator grabbed my attention based on its design and nifty locator function. Here’s my ZUS smart car charger locator review.
Design
OK, the ZUS is like the stealth fighter of car chargers, it literally looks like a part pulled off of a Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk. The whole thing is titanium coated adding to its durability and just holding the thing you can tell it is premium. While it is light you can feel it’s a bit heavier than other similar products due to it’s higher build quality. The ZUS also has an LED light built in so you can find it more easily in the dark. The USB ports each have light emitting from them and the top portion has a small grill where light emits. Once you plug in a USB cable the light is covered but the top portion still shows. The added LED is a nice touch.
Performance
Also built into the ZUS is a cooling system that brings the heat down while charging your devices, it’s a significant difference from some of the other car chargers on the market, check out the chart below.
ZUS is the only car charger to meet US Military MIL-STD-810G High Temperature Standard. It is crafted from the highest grade German Bayer PC/ABS with all metal parts coated in Titanium in order to work under temperatures up to 100°C/212°F.
The ZUS’s dual USB charging ports also push out an amazing 4.8A each allowing you to charge two devices TWICE as fast like two iPad Air 2’s in 3.75 hours rather than 8 hours. Smartphones charge even faster than that, in my testing my devices charged as advertised sometimes with even faster results.
But probably the best feature of the ZUS is the car locator, which works even if you have no cell reception. The included app (iOS and Android) pairs with your smartphone and saves your car’s location once you turn the car off. If you forget where you left your car, simply open the app and the app points you in the right direction. Once you are within 500 feet of your car the app alerts you that you are near and should look around for your car. In my testing I found that this was pretty spot on accurate.
I did find that you need to give ZUS a second or two before walking away from your car for it to save it’s location. Sometimes I would stop, jump out, and run to my front door and the ZUS would record my car being inside the house. That only happened when I was in a hurry running off quickly. Otherwise this thing is spot on and a great way to find your vehicle should you forget where you left it.
Ease of Use
If you can setup a Bluetooth speaker, you can use the ZUS really easily, it’s that simple.
Price/Value
The expected MSRP for the ZUS is supposed to be $49.00 but if you support the Indiegogo right now you can get it for $29.00. Right now the ZUS is fully funded and is racing towards its stretch goal of $250K which will add parking time alerts to the device so you can avoid getting a parking ticket for expired meters. At $29.00 the ZUS is a great deal and with them being 1776% funded already, it’s really a no brainer purchase if you’re in need of a car charger/locator. The dual 4.8A charging capability alone is awesome.
Wrap Up
Yes USB Type C is coming but it’s not here yet and probably won’t be standard for some time, this is $29.00 which is a great value and I highly recommend this device.
[rwp-review id=”0″]*We were sent a demo unit of the ZUS for the purposes of this review.
Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
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