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Digital Nomad Gear: ZeroLemon Extreme Charge Station Review

Finally, one thing to charge everything.

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Chargers, cables, adapters, plugs, batteries, power strips, more chargers, more cables … This is the life of the digital nomad. If you want to travel with your electronics — the tools of the trade — you need to travel with the accessories which power them. If you go deep into this profession, you will probably find yourself buried in charging gear. I actually carry a dedicated bag that’s just for chargers and cables and adapters to power my computers, cameras, phones, audio recorders, LED lights, gimbals, and monitors. I’ve already talked about how many batteries I travel with — each one needs to be charged somehow. It’s ridiculous.

So when ZeroLemon reached out with their Extreme Charge Station — which carries the tagline “Fast Charge for all your gadgets” — I decided to give it a try.

Power station

Basically, the Extreme Charge Station is a power box that has 2 USB-C, 2 USB-A, and 2 wireless charging docks, so you can charge up to six devices at one time. What separates this device from a normal power strip is its power: with 135W output this thing cannot only charge big batteries — such as those in laptops — but charge them fast. The company claims that it can full-charge a 15″ MacBook in two hours.

It’s also small enough to travel with, being 5.5″ long, a little over 4″ wide, and standing only 1.5″ it fits right into my carry on camera bag.

One of my biggest issues after a long day of filming is having to triage what devices / batteries should be charged first. Should I charge my camera batteries or my lights? My phone or my audio recorders? While I do have various multi-port chargers, they often don’t have the space to allow for all the ports to actually be used at once or they, simply put, are not powerful enough and it takes an extremely long time to charge everything — thus limiting the advantage of their multi-port functionality. So what I often do is try to plug everything into its own outlet all over whatever room I’m in. This is cumbersome and there is never enough outlets to effectively do this.

ZeroLemon Power station

So I began using ZeroLemon’s Extreme Charge Station. It sits right on my stainless steel worktable at my new base of operations in Queens and when I go out for trips it fits right into my charger bag, limiting my need to carry an array of different plugs. I usually just keep a bunch of cables hanging out of it at all times, and when I need to plug in I can do so easily — kind of like a car pulling up to a gas station.

Another advantage of the Extreme Charge Station over a standard multi-port charger dock is that it can regulate it’s temperature with a fan-driving cooling system, which keeps the temperature under under 105.8℉ (41℃). This means the power flow isn’t going to be cut back by heat accumulation and there is less of a change that it’s going to burst into flames — as cheap off-market Chinese chargers purchased on Amazon will occasionally do (I had one melt once).

ZeroLemon Power station

ZeroLemon’s Extreme Charge Station started out as a Kickstarter campaign, and while I often hesitate to promote Kickstarter projects — many never actually ship — they have already brought in nearly 15 times their goal and they have products ready to send out. I got one. It works excellent.

The retail cost is $99, but you can pre-order one for $69.

If you’re a digital nomad, filmmaker, or a photographer whose profession relies upon being able to quickly charge an array of devices / batteries, it’s probably worth it — especially is you use a USB-C charged MacBook. My “do you really need this” rating for this product is 7/10.

ZeroLemon Power station

 

Filed under: Digital Nomad, Electronics, Travel Gear

About the Author:

I am the founder and editor of Vagabond Journey. I’ve been traveling the world since 1999, through 91 countries. I am the author of the book, Ghost Cities of China and have written for The Guardian, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Diplomat, the South China Morning Post, and other publications. has written 3694 posts on Vagabond Journey. Contact the author.

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VBJ is currently in: New York City

6 comments… add one

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  • Georgiy Romanov September 3, 2019, 4:17 am

    Cool! I have a big problem with chargers and wires! There are too many of them and it pisses me off! Thanks for this device. I will order one for myself.

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    • Wade Shepard September 3, 2019, 6:41 am

      Excellent!

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  • Jack September 7, 2019, 9:26 pm

    I love how it incorporates an Apple Watch Charger and Wireless phone charger. I think with the available plugs, I think I could charge my entire kit with it at once. Yes I can do that with my three available outlets, but that station looks so compact and easy to use.

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    • Wade Shepard September 10, 2019, 10:51 am

      Yes, it’s usage points really shoot up if you can utilize the wireless phone and watch aspects. If you’re running a Macbook with a USB-C outlets it really could be an all in one solution in the size that’s only around double a normal Macbook plug.

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  • Trevor September 13, 2019, 10:06 am

    Anker sent me a replacement POWERCORE that i purchased thru Amazon only to hav it pack up after 11 months of limited use. My faith in humanity is somewhat restored… (wrecked cos i work with a load of tossers) ;))

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    • Wade Shepard September 13, 2019, 2:11 pm

      That’s cool. Anker isn’t a bad company in that they really created a niche for themselves in the low price, medium quality category. I use some Anker gear. But you — and they for that matter — have to watch out for all those fakes on Amazon though. They look exactly the same and it’s impossible (even difficult for the companies themselves) to tell them apart.

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