There was so much AI-powered nonsense at CES earlier this year that it was refreshing to see a very straightforward gadget like the Swippitt Instant Power System. In the fluorescent purgatory of a Vegas convention center, where every booth promises revolution through algorithmic sorcery, a bread-box-sized device made the simplest promise imaginable: Your phone will never die again.
The mechanics border on the absurd. At the core of a system is a proprietary case, which contains a removable battery. (Your device’s onboard battery stays where it always is—no warranty-voiding worries here.) When the battery is drained, you pop your phone into the top of the box, and it automatically removes that Swippitt battery from the case and drops in a fresh one. Two seconds. That’s all. No staring at crawling progress bars, no negotiation with charging cables. Just the satisfying click of mechanical certainty.
At $450 for the hub and five batteries—plus another $120 per case—you’re essentially buying into a $600 anxiety management system. There’s something almost religious in that promise, this liberation from the twice-daily ritual of genuflecting before the outlet.
The psychology runs deeper than convenience. We’ve become a species that measures time in battery percentages, that feels the creeping dread at 20%, the full panic at 5%. The Hub manages, charges, and moves five extra batteries—enough for an entire household to maintain their digital lifelines.
One commenter cut through the marketing: “You must name this product ‘Phone Toaster’ because everybody will remember that name.” They weren’t wrong. There’s something distinctly analog about dropping your phone into a slot, hearing the mechanical exchange, walking away restored. It’s the same satisfaction our grandparents got from dropping bread into chrome slots.
Compatible with all iPhone models 15 & 16, with Android compatibility promised by year’s end, Swippitt exists in that peculiar space between solving a problem and institutionalizing it. We’ve normalized carrying backup batteries, and now someone’s built a better delivery system.
The real genius might be in what it doesn’t do. No app optimization lectures. No battery health sermons. Just a tidy countertop solution to make the fix more elegant. In a world that’s forgotten the pleasure of mechanical solutions, Swippitt offers something almost nostalgic. Not progress, exactly. But perhaps acceptance, wrapped in brushed aluminum.
