The HooToo Tripmate Elite HT-TM06 is an essential item on my packing list for trips of any length. This travel gadget is a real tech Swiss Army knife. It’s a true multi-tasker packing an impressive array of features. I’ve used it to:
- Wirelessly stream content from a USB stick so my wife and I could catch up on our favorite shows during a long layover.
- Charge my Android and my wife’s iPhone simultaneously. (It’s a 6000 mAh power bank as well!)
- Take one free wired internet connection via Ethernet and convert it into WiFi so we could connect multiple devices (which would have cost us $19 per day if buying WiFi from the hotel).
- Plug into the wall to use as a power brick to charge two devices at once.
And that was all in one day!
Clicking the image takes you to the product page on Amazon
WHO’S IT FOR?
The HooToo Tripmate Elite is suitable even for infrequent travelers and general tech enthusiasts. It’s even sufficient to replace a home WiFi access point in a pinch. The real benefit comes for the tech-dependent traveler (and who among us wouldn’t put ourselves in that category?). It’s small form factor, generous 6,000 mAh battery, and extremely user-friendly smartphone app are all incredibly useful.
VALUE
The Tripmate is an amazing value. It has paid for itself a few times over in saved hotel WiFi fees. It’s hard to beat that! Not to mention that if you were to separately buy a portable access point, power bank, and dual output power brick separately, you’d easily spend twice as much and still would have the features packed into this one device.
DRAWBACKS
So in a perfect world, what other features would I like to see in the Tripmate? Well, more than once I thought how great it would be if this had a SIM card slot. Traveling through Asia, it’s easy to grab a prepaid SIM at a convenience store (or in a vending machine in Japan!). This would be a 6/5 if it could be converted into a hot spot by popping in a SIM card. One other great feature would be the addition of a MicroSD slot. It could save packing a USB MicroSD Card adapter.