Reviewed: December 6, 2008
Reviewed by: Jason Porter

Manufacturer
TeknoCreations

Type: Rechargeable Battery Station
System: Nintendo Wii

Rating: 9.0

Features

Like most rechargeable battery widgets these days, InCharge does not require that you remove the battery from the device (in this case, the Wii Remote) to charge it, which is convenient. InCharge ups the ante on competing products by offering a system that will recharge up to two Wii Remotes at once without the need for removing their wrist straps or silicone safety sleeves.

The InCharge has a white plastic base unit with cradles for two Wii Remotes, plus two rechargeable lithium polymer batteries, which creators TeknoCreations claim "are more durable and last longer than standard nickel cadmium [NiCad] batteries." Apparently, the difference is that NiCads don't take well to being recharged from a partial charge, while this polymer battery "loves" it. In other words, you don't have to worry about completely draining your battery charge for fear of wearing the battery down too quickly.

The batteries themselves come attached to plastic battery plates, which replace the back covers that come with the Wii Remote. Once the battery pack has been attached to the remote, setting the whole thing in the plastic cradle will begin charging it. How exactly the base manages to recharge the battery packs remains a mystery to me. I suspect black magic, but some sort of forbidden alien technology also seems like a viable option. There is no sort of socket or plug to attach whatsoever. The outside of the battery shield features two translucent plastic dots, one clear and one red. The clear dot lines up with another clear dot in the bottom of the remote cradle, which then begins glowing blue as it apparently uses transporter technology to beam electricity directly into the battery pack. Whatever the technical process, it does work.

Eliminating the need to attach or socket anything into the Wii Remote is what allows the InCharge to charge remotes even with the safety sleeves on. In fact, remotes don't even have to be set precisely into their cradles--just letting them slide loosely into place also does the trick. Will the wonders of science never cease? When a remote has finished charging the steady blue light becomes a flashing blue light instead, so it's simple to know when your remote is ready for more Metroid Prime 3.

The cradle base is very lightweight, so finding an out-of-the-way place to set it is ideal, as I discovered to my chagrin when my cat knocked the whole thing on its side the first night I set it up. The first charge takes around six hours to finish, but oddly, moving a remote from its cradle seems to restart this process. Once the initial charge is completed, this problem disappears. It has been my experience so far that the lithium polymer batteries tend to run down somewhat faster than their traditional counterparts (but they don't drain out while the remote isn't in use, which is good).

A willingness to set the remotes back onto the base unit each night provides a basically endless, worry-free charge, though, and overall the product works exactly as one might hope. There's even a failsafe circuit built into the base that keeps the batteries from overcharging themselves, so it's perfectly fine to set a remote in its cradle and forget about it until the next time it's needed.

For $34.99, the InCharge might seem a bit on the spendy side, but considering that it actually works very well, it’s money well spent and eventually recouped in battery savings. And of course the big hook for this device is that it will charge through your Nintendo or most other third-party protective skins. The TeknoCreations InCharge for Wii consistently works the way it's supposed to, and there's no better recommendation of a peripheral than that.