Ah! The dreaded wire clutter – the safe-haven for dust balls, the sanctuary for spider webs, and possibly the most hated of first world problems.
Our viewer (reader?) Sharath wrote in to us complaining about the tangled ball of wires at his laptop desk, wondering if there really was a solution. Is there? We got thinking too, and looked at a few solutions.
The Wire Bin from Tidy Up! is a ‘so simple it must work’ type of solution. This is essentially a sturdy plastic bin built for this specific purpose. I must warn you – if you are expecting a techno-magical solution – this isn’t it. The Wire Bin name pretty much sums up what it is and does.
The idea being that you store your power-strip (spike buster) in the box and use the two ‘keyholes’ on either end of the box to pass wires and cables in-and-out.
It works. It has to, since there really isn’t much that can go wrong with this simple premise. But here is what I wish was better.
The bin (at least the black one I ordered) is made of glossy plastic, which is a recipe to pick up lots of fingerprints. A matte finish would have suited it and also kept it more inconspicuous – which I assume is the whole point. Also the price at Rs.499 is a little higher than I would have liked to pay for this.
There are also lots of ‘Do-It-Yourself’ solutions for addressing the ‘cable tangle’ – for starters, you could make your own ‘bin’ – similar to the Wire Bin above. A shoe-box (or an amazon delivery box more likely) with holes cut out on either ends should be a free (albeit ugly) alternative. It’s up to you to decide which is more unsightly – messy wires, or an old shoe box.
I also used another solution for my laptop desk, which had a very large power strip. I used double-sided tape (recommend 3M Scotch since they hold up more weight than unbranded ones) to simply stick the power strip to the underside of the table. This cleared the floor and cleared the mess.
You could also use a PVC pipe or Velcro strips to keep the bunch of wires together.
Have other solutions? Have a question? Write in to us at tech @ talkingstuff.net. You could not just get a solution to your tech frustration – but also win some cool merchandise.
Vinayak Nair is a self-confessed geek from the days when computer memory was measured in Kilobytes. I create YouTube videos on 3D Printing, DIY Projects, Everyday tech reviews and also delve into gaming.
