By Liyo Kikon
THE most common form of accessory for mobile phones are: cover/shell, bluetooth headset, power bank, and selfie sticks. But there are so many other accessories for your phone and if you check online, you will find things which you never thought existed! Here are some of my picks for cool accessories you can get today to jazz up your mobile phone.
1. Wireless charger
Some phones already have this as an inbuilt feature while others just have to look at them with envy. Well, say goodbye to cable! If your phone does not support wireless charging and you still want it, you can purchase an external wireless charger for your phone. It is available for all devices - Android, iOS, Windows and others. It comes in the form of a small disk or square shaped plate and a thin flexible wire sticking out of one end. You simply connect the wire to the charging port in your phone and hide the disk plate behind a cover/shell and that’s it! All you need now is a QI Charging pad and if you place the phone down on the QI pad, your phone will start charging. You can find the charging receiver on all online stores for around Rs 300/- and a decent QI Pad will cost around 400 bucks. With this little hack, you can show off the wireless charging on your phone and it is quite practical as well, since you don’t have to go around untangling wires.
2. External Drive
With the introduction of OTG (On-The-Go) drives some years back, they have been widely popular since it gives you the ability to store your large files on a pen drive and save up your phone memory. But OTG Drives used to be really inconvenient since you have to plug it in your phone every time you want to use it. This problem has been solved with the introduction of wireless drives. You don’t need to plug in the wireless drives to your phone, all you need is to carry it in your pocket/bag/purse and you can easily access the drive’s content any time from either your phone, laptop or any devices. These wireless drives come with a built-in battery which obviously needs charging at the end of the day if you use it constantly but that is a small trade off, since you can still use it wirelessly even when they are charging. You can get a decent wireless drive for around 1,500 or less but if you want more storage, you will have to pay more. These drives are something you must have, if you constantly face problems with low storage on your phone.
3. External Lens
If you love photography, but you don’t have the cash for a high end DSLR camera, you can still take great pictures with an external lens attached to your phone camera. Granted, this will not improve your picture quality if you have a low end phone, but you can certainly get some very interesting shots with different lenses. Say for example, if you love taking macro photography (small objects), then you can get a macro lens for your phone and this will greatly improve the ability of your phone’s camera to take close up shots with great detail, just make sure that you are in a well lit environment, or use external lights to get the best results. These lenses are cheap and you can get a starter kit for just a few hundred bucks online.
I’m baffled by the fact that this accessory is still not considered as a necessity by most people but smartwatches are more useful than one can imagine. In short, it is a device which sits on your wrist and takes care of all your phone notifications and you can interact with it via touch or voice (unless you have a pebble, which uses physical buttons). Every time you hear a notification pop on your phone, most people reach out to their phone or take it out of their pocket just to read a message. But if you have a smartwatch on you, all you need to do is glance down and if the message needs replying, you can either send a preset text or simply use your voice to reply. Once you get used to this system, it is hard to let go of the convenience that a smartwatch provides.
If you are a mobile gamer, you gotta get one of these! Game controllers for mobile work great if you are a hardcore gamer and hate having to use the touch controls since your fingers usually end up covering most of the screen area. It is really simple to use, all you need to do is switch on the bluetooth on your phone and pair it with the controller and you’re all set. Most games these days already have support for game controllers so there is no need for any additional configurations. Sadly, these controllers work best with android only. But you can make them work on iOS as well, if you have a jailbreak device. You can get a basic controller for around Rs. 2,000/- on Indian online stores or if you have patience, you can get it for a lot less on aliexpress. Other accessories you should check out are VR Headset, Fitness Bands, Selfie Flash Lights, Smart Plugs, Bluetooth Device locator, Mini Keyboard.
