Twelve South’s Valet is a handsome place to put your stuff

For years, the accessory shaper Twelve South has sold clever accessories for charging gadgets. Its caller device, the Valet, is possibly its simplest thought ever: it’s a nice-looking tray designed to beryllium the spot you driblet your keys, sunglasses, and different pouch detritus, and offers a mates of ways to complaint immoderate needs to beryllium charged. It costs $179.99, and ships successful the adjacent mates of weeks.

Most of the Valet tray is just… tray. It’s covered successful a soft leather, which comes successful respective different colors. (You tin besides customize the outer metallic framework to match.) On 1 side, a raised quadrate acts for illustration a podium for wireless charging up to 15 watts. You tin plug successful different USB cablegram to a larboard connected the side, and complaint a 2nd instrumentality that measurement — again astatine 15 watts. The Valet itself plugs successful via a 36-watt powerfulness supply, and comes pinch a 1.5-meter cablegram to do so.

The charging specs make the Valet’s intent beautiful clear: This is not meant to beryllium your laptop charger, aliases a charging hub of really immoderate kind. It’s not moreover arsenic straightforwardly functional arsenic Twelve South’s ain HiRise, which tin complaint 3 devices astatine a time. What it is, instead, is an effort to make charging your astir important devices — particularly your telephone — consciousness a spot much seamless.

It’s the everlasting dream of wireless charging, really, to conscionable put your instrumentality down wherever and person it afloat erstwhile you prime it up. Aligned connected a podium isn’t precisely wherever, but I’ve been utilizing a Valet and I person successful truth enjoyed not hunting for cables truthful much. Mine’s sitting connected my desk, but astir Valets will apt extremity up connected nightstands and successful entryways.

Twelve South is 1 of a batch of companies, including large names for illustration Ikea, exploring gadgets that look much for illustration location decor than precocious tech. This year’s CES is filled pinch gadgets trying to hide their basal gadget-ness, and while the Valet whitethorn not beryllium the astir earth-shattering illustration of the idea, it’s a beautiful useful one.