Do you or someone you know have a cable management problem? If so, then these tiny, spring loaded,helpers, called Recoil Winders (Amazon), are what they want to aid in the quest for cable management. The Recoil Winders are designed to fit anything from a lamp cord to a pair of headphones. They work by having you bend your cord in half, inserting it into the plastic hook, pulling back, and letting the recoil of the spring inside wind up your cord for you. It’s a pretty cool idea, but it has many flaws. Let’s start with the process of inserting your cable into the Recoil Winders.
First, you have to bend your cord in half. It may be central to the workings of this product, but it is the last thing you are supposed to do with a cord. To add to the fun, you have to pull on your cord as it is being pulled back by the spring.
Ever notice how your headphones last longer when you don’t wrap them around your iPod? Same property.
Once you let go of your cord, it whips around the spool until it cannot fit in any more. There’s no button to stop it from rolling up (the trigger is actually in the hook you put your cord into), and nothing in place to let you manually stop the cord (besides continuing to fight the spring for it). Once your cord is coiled up, you have to pull on it to get it out.
Even once you have pulled it all the way, you have to get it off the trigger that controls the spring. This can be done by holding your finger on the colored plastic and pressing down until you can get your cord out without the spring moving.
The Recoil Winders do get a few things right including design, color, and even designing a stand that’s easy to use and lets you put any Winder in any slot you like.
Overall, though, I simply cannot recommend Recoil Winders. Over time, they could cause damage to your cords, and there are better cable management systems out there that simply won’t do that. I really don’t like giving bad reviews of products, but the Recoil Winders, though they may do what they set out to, don’t do it without potentially causing damage to your cords.
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