Two Battery Packs For The Price Of One

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It probably won’t come as a surprise that when we travel, I’m responsible for bringing all the requisite charging gear for my family’s devices. I do work for a gadget website, after all. It’s not a glorious role, but someone’s got to do it, because it’s a real bummer when your phone, tablet or gaming handheld runs out of juice and you don’t have a good way to recharge it. The natural solutions to this are battery packs, which nowadays feel like essential travel gear. But what do you do when multiple people have devices that need a refill at the same time?

Sure, this isn’t a situation you’ll run into all the time, and you can always carry several power banks around. But all that extra weight adds up fast. Instead, why not opt for a battery pack that can split in half, allowing two devices to go their separate ways without either needing to skip out on a charge? That’s precisely what Nimble did when it made the SharePower, the world’s first sharable battery pack that transforms from a single 10,000mAh cell into two 5,000mAh power banks with a simple twist of your wrist.

The SharePower has a streamlined design while still supporting a handful of useful bonuses. It features a rectangular plastic shell (made from 100 percent recycled materials) with rounded edges and what looks to be a built-in carrying strap. There’s also a decorative hexagon that turns into a digital power readout when you press the button on its side.

However, things get more interesting when you grab each side of the battery pack and pull it apart to reveal two independent cells joined together magnetically. On the inside, it becomes quickly apparent that the carrying strap is actually a captured cable that you can use to charge anything with a USB-C port without needing to rely on external cords (though you do get a spare in the box for good measure).

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

If you press the second button on the inside, you’ll reveal a hidden set of indicator lights to show charge status for that side. Granted, because there’s only four of them, it’s not nearly as precise as the digits you get on the other display, but it’s good enough for an estimate. Meanwhile, the other half of the battery pack features a flip-up USB-C jack that neatly attaches to the bottom of a phone or tablet. All told, it’s a clever kit that gives you a lot of flexibility when it comes to charging multiple devices while still being relatively compact. The SharePower is similar in size (3.1 x 2.8 x 1 inches) and weight (7.6 ounces) to a deck of playing cards.

While they are relatively minor, I do have two critiques. I appreciate how convenient Nimble’s magnetic connection is, I just wish it was a bit stronger. If you accidentally grab one half and give it a shake, there’s a decent chance the other side will fall off, which isn’t something I really want to worry about. My other small gripe is that I’m not a fan of captured cables (aka cords that are hardwired into a gadget). I fear that if people really do use the built-in wire as a carrying strap, it’ll be much more prone to damage that won’t be easy to repair.

When the SharePower is intact, it has a 10,000mAh capacity and supports up to 35 watts of total power output split between its three USB-C ports. Alternatively, when separated, each half holds 5,000mAh of power that can be pushed out at up to 20 watts. That said, Nimble’s most clever feature is the inclusion of a couple sets of pogo pins, so that when the two halves are put back together, they equalize power across the combined cell. This means the next time you take it apart, each side has the same amount of juice, so no one will get the short end of the charging stick.

The one caveat to this centers on Nimble’s claim of up to 35 watts of total power output, which you can achieve when charging more than one device. When I measured its charging speeds with a USB-C power tester with only one gadget connected, its max speed topped out at 20 watts.This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it means you won’t get a huge drop when topping off two gadgets at once. But on the flipside, it also means you don’t get that full 35 watts when you’re flying solo. Finally, while I understand why Nimble didn’t include it due to the pack’s 2-in-1 design, the SharePower doesn’t support wireless charging.

When a third-party device manages to land on Apple.com‘s accessory page, it’s often viewed as an unofficial seal of approval, so it won’t be a shock to most that Cook and Co. picked a good one here. The Nimble SharePower provides nearly everything you want from a solid battery pack. Its 10,000mAh capacity is more than respectable for its size and it can charge up to three devices at once, which is nice if you have a large roster of gadgets that need to be topped up. The SharePower also comes with two separate power readouts, so there’s never any confusion about how much juice it has to distribute.

But the real magic happens when you have two people that need a refill. At a moment’s notice, the SharePower can split in half to provide each person with enough energy to top off most modern smartphones, or just shy of a full charge for something like a Switch 2. This means you can go on separate adventures with a friend with the confidence that your gadgets won’t die on you, or simply doomscroll together without being chained to one another. And when the day is over, you can reassemble the SharePower and refill it with a single cable, which makes it easier to manage and more compact than two standalone power banks. Even though the SharePower costs a bit more than a basic battery pack, it has useful added functionality that makes it one of the most group friendly portable power sources on the market.