TechNotes: Road Trip Gadgets That Make Your Trip

It’s Road-Tripn’ Time!  Time to pack the car and kids!  In our previous Family TechNotes, we mentioned some of our favorite apps to help you plan out your road trip. 

In this article, we have suggestions for technology to take along with you to make your family road trip better prepared and more fun.

Road Trip Tech Gotta Have’s!

Weego Jump Starter 44

We never know how long our car batteries are going to last.  Murphy’s Law states it will happen at the most inopportune time…maybe even on vacation.  There are a lot of great personal car jumpers on the market now.  For a long road trip, the Weego Jump Starter 44 is a great one.

It can jump up to a 7-liter car or truck engine, features a 500-lumen flashlight, can charge your phone up to 6 times, AND has a 19V output for charging your laptop.  It’s a perfect companion when you’re on the road and need to keep your laptop…or your car engine charged!  It also has a 12V port for powering accessories such as air compressors and fans – great for camping too!

The Weego Jump Starter 44 is available from the Weego website for $144.99 plus shipping and taxes.

Nonda Smart Safety Tire Monitor

The Nonda Smart Safety Tire Monitor is a new tool to help ensure your tires are working at their best.  Attach the four locking nuts on each of your tires to lock the sensors in place.

They evaluate the tire pressure in all four of your tires using Nonda’s AccurateTemp algorithm.  You’ll be warned of pressure issues, indicating possible flat tires and preventing disastrous blowouts.

Installation takes less than 10 minutes and individual tire pressures and temperatures are sent directly to your smartphone app.  It will no longer be a guessing game how your tire pressure is holding up and will save you from worry while traveling on the road.

The Nonda Smart Safety Tire Monitor is available from the Nonda website for $119.99 with free shipping.

SanDisk Wireless Stick

The SanDisk Wireless Stick is one of those sleeper gadgets.  It’s incredibly useful but you’ve likely not heard of it before (unless you are a regular Well Connected Mom reader!). 

The SanDisk Wireless stick can plug into your PC via USB to download music, pictures, and movies.  With varying available sizes, you can load over a hundred movies on one stick, dependent upon the size you choose.

So here’s the beauty.  With your movies, music, and photos downloaded on your SanDisk Wireless Stick, you wirelessly share the content with up to 3 other users in the car!  You can watch your favorite movie in the passenger seat while the kids in the back of the car can watch other movies, it’s really a fantastic road trip tool!

Best yet, you can set up its accompanying app to automatically back up copies of your photos and videos from your phone’s camera roll to the Wireless Stick when connected to each other!  So you’ll have plenty of space to take vacation pictures without worry of the dreaded “no more storage” message.

The SanDisk Wireless Stick is available on Amazon in different sizes from 32GB to 256GB – prices ranging from $22 – $115.  For streaming videos and saving back-ups from your family road trip vacation photos, we recommend buying the 200GB size for $75 to ensure you have plenty of room.

Headphone Splitter

A headphone splitter allows two of your children in the backseat to watch a movie together and both hear using their own headphones.

This particular splitter features dual volume control adjusters so both kids can hear at a comfortable level. 

Each child plugs their headphones into the jack and the splitter plugs into the tablet or smartphone.   

Here’s one from iLuv for $9.99 plus shipping.

Netflix (download)

If your family is a big Netflix fan like we are, then downloading some of your family’s favorite movies and tv shows is perfect for a family road trip. 

From your Netflix app you can download movies like Sing, Despicable Me 3, Mama Mia, Boss Baby, Flash, The Office, SuperGirl, Men in Black,  Power Rangers, Crown, Stranger Things, Riverdale, VeggieTales, House of Cards, Black Mirror, Law and Order, and more!

Instead of asking, “are we there yet?” your kids will ask, “do we have to stop now?” as they are eager to finish their movie or tv show.

Netflix is available from Netflix.com or through their app for $10.99/mo., which allows you to stream from two devices at once (though not necessary if you’ve downloaded the movies).

Wherever you’re headed this Summer, enjoy your road trip with your family.  Memories made from family trips like this truly last a lifetime and give your children a true sense of adventure and belonging.

Happy Trails!