5 Keychain Charging Gadgets That'll Save You From A Dead Battery

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Smartphones are an almost-indispensable part of our daily lives. While smartphone addiction is indeed a very real thing — leading to devices like the Brick, which tries to lock you out of addictive apps — most of us rely on our pocket computers to do all sorts of tasks regardless, from navigating via Google or Apple Maps to doing our banking and, of course, keeping in touch with friends or colleagues via Slack or WhatsApp.

Thus, it can be a real pain when a smartphone starts running low on battery with no way to top it up. Sure, there are plenty of great power bank manufacturers making excellent products, but not everyone wants (or remembers) to carry a power bank with them on the go. Thus, small, easy-to-carry charging gadgets can be a great help, especially those that will fit on a keychain.

While it's not a huge market, there are quite a few companies out there making keychain-friendly charging gadgets that will save you in a pinch. From mini power banks to compact charging cables you can easily carry with your car or house keys, here are some keychain charging gadgets that'll help keep you and your phone going until you get back home.

Even miniature power banks like the Anker-rivaling Iniu Mini Portable Charger are still large enough that you need to slip them into a pocket or a bag. While there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, the Rolling Square Tau 2 offers a handy alternative to even the smallest conventional power bank, albeit with capacity compromises.

The $40 Tau 2 is a key fob-sized power bank that attaches to a keychain via a quick-detach cover. This cover lets you easily remove it from the keychain when you want to charge a device and also protects the ports on the integrated USB-C and combination Lightning-Micro USB charging cables. The Tau 2 has a 2,000 mAh capacity, which Rolling Square claims should be able to take a dead smartphone to 30% battery or so. While that's handy, some reviewers did feel that the capacity is a bit small for its dimensions (2.2 x 1.7 x 0.7 inches without the hook), so those of you who aren't wedded to the keychain form factor may want to consider more capacious options.

On the plus side, the Tau 2 does offer some nice extras. While the keychain device has an input mode for charging via USB-C, Rolling Square ships the Tau 2 with a wall-mountable magnetic dock that lets you charge the Tau 2 without removing it from your keys. This ensures that you'll never end up carrying the power bank without your keys or vice versa, which is a nice touch. The Tau 2 also works as an NFC tag and has a web-based "Lost Mode," both of which are nice value-adds given how small (and potentially easy to lose) it is.

Limiting yourself to a keychain-mountable power bank doesn't mean that you have to give up wireless charging, as the Iniu SnapGo Mini Portable Charger proves. Iniu's tiny charger has impressive capacity for its palm-sized (3.2 x 1.5 x 1.1 inches) form factor, with a 5,000 mAh cell inside that it claims will bring an iPhone 16 to 91% charge from empty or fully charge an Apple Watch S10 six times.

Size and shape aside, Iniu's SnapGo charger is otherwise a pretty standard power bank. It has an integrated USB-C cable — no Lightning here, unfortunately, although that's probably not going to be an issue for most — and has a USB-C port that works as an input and output, with pass-through support so you can charge the power bank while topping up another device. The cable offers 20W PD fast charging, while the wireless charging pad is good for 5W. That means you're probably not going to get much (or any) joy trying to charge a smartphone wirelessly, but it should be fine for a smartwatch — which is what Iniu advertises it for.

Amazon owners are generally quite positive about the Iniu, with the power bank sporting a 4.5-star rating from 700-plus reviews. Nearly 75% of these are 5-star reviews, with happy owners praising its overall utility for emergency charging and good value, although some have expressed doubts about whether it is truly a 5,000 mAh power bank. The Iniu SnapGo comes with a three-year warranty and will set you back around $27.

Sometimes, the issue with trying to stop a smartphone battery from dying isn't the lack of a power source but rather the lack of a charging cable. While it's probably not too hard to pop into a store and quickly grab any old USB cable, having something like the Nomad ChargeKey on your keychain is a solid way to have an always-ready solution for those emergency charging situations.

The $29 Nomad ChargeKey is a short (12 cm or about 4.7 inches) USB-C to USB-C cable with an integrated keychain loop that's rated for 240W charging and 10 Gbps data transfer. This means you're not giving up any performance to have a cable that attaches to your keys. Sure, it's pretty pricey, considering that you can get Apple's 6-foot 240W USB-C cable for the same price or less, but you're paying for the portability here. And it's that portability that's the key factor, as the ChargeKey's short length means it's likely not going to be a good choice if you're charging from a wall adapter, either. It's definitely a niche cable.

To soften the blow somewhat, Nomad has at least made efforts to ensure that its ChargeKey comes across as a reasonably premium product. The cable itself has a braided nylon sleeve, while the zinc tips have an electro-plated finish for a sleek look. These tips also have integrated magnets, keeping the ends together so that they don't flop around. Nomad offers the ChargeKey in Carbide and Stellar Orange, the latter a perfect fit for that orange Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max you bought.

SnapWireless probably isn't the first name that comes to mind when one thinks of power bank manufacturers. Despite that, the company's PowerPack Nano looks to be a decent enough example of a keychain power bank that's worth considering.

The PowerPack Nano's basic concept isn't at all dissimilar to other compact keychain-friendly power banks, with a small 2,000 mAh cell and integrated cables (USB-C and Lightning), plus a USB-C input. Unfortunately, all of its USB connections max out at 2 amps, so you're not getting any fast charging and will have to make do with 10W at the most. SnapWireless claims that it'll take about 1.2 hours to charge the PowerPack Nano via its USB-C input, and that it can provide up to 50% battery to a smartphone. We're not sure about the latter, given that even a budget smartphone like the 2025 Moto G Stylus comes with a 5,000 mAh battery, but even a 30% or so top-up will be very useful. Note that the company says that the PowerPack Nano isn't designed for charging multiple devices, despite the presence of two cables.

On the plus side, the Nano is at least pretty small and thin, measuring approximately 2.5 x 1.5 x 0.4 inches, so it should sit nicely in your pocket along with your keys. It also has a built-in LED light that may come in handy for some. Owners seem to be pretty happy with their PowerPack Nanos, with the $42 power bank having solid reviews on the manufacturer's website.

Having multiple USB cable types can be quite useful, but stuffing a bunch of different USB cables into a bag (or worse, a pants pocket) can be a bit unwieldy. The Rolling Square InCharge X looks to kill multiple birds with a single stone, offering a handy keychain cable for quick device-to-device top-ups and data transfer that also supports multiple types of USB ports without extra adapters.

The InCharge X is a 5.7-inch 6-in-1 cable that lets you take a USB-C or USB-A input and connect it to USB-C, Lightning, or Micro USB ports. While it is indeed six cables in one, you're not going to mix and match willy-nilly: the power inputs are only USB-C and USB-A, and the Lightning and Micro-USB ports only work as power outputs. That shouldn't be an issue at all, since we're hard pressed to think of any modern power sources that use Lightning or Micro USB. Sure, you can still buy new gadgets with Micro USB, but they're probably not going to be ones that can charge your phone or tablet anyway.

Rolling Square's $30 InCharge X maxes out at 100W of charging and 480 Mbps data, but this is predictably only available when used as a USB-C to USB-C cable. The various built-in adapters will step power down to their respective limits, ranging from 27W fast charging with the Lightning adapter all the way down to old-school to 5V 1A when using the Micro-USB connector. If you don't need Micro USB, the Rolling Square InCharge XS is a 4-in-1 alternative that kicks power delivery up to 240W for the same MSRP.