The
USB coffee warmer and hub combination that we tested is of the cheap, mass produced and Chinese variety. The warming part consists of a circular metal pad that heats up in couple of minutes to be too hot to touch for more than a second or so, and the theory is this keeps your coffee warm. Our exhaustive and rigorous testing regimen we employed here at the Hub International Testing Laboratories consisted fundamentally of me drinking a lot of coffees with thermometers sticking out of them, and the results were, well, lukewarm. The warmer slows down the natural reduction in temperature, and after an hour or so the coffees were drinkable but nowhere near preferable to a fresh cup. Who takes an hour to drink a coffee anyway? So after a couple of hours our warmer plateaued at around 31-33 degrees, tepid at best and only suitable for total caffeine addicts in desperate need of a hit.
The hub part of the deal works well and manages to keep 4 low powered devices connected without a problem. The warmer can be turned off while the hub is being used, so you don't need to risk slightly warm fingers when changing devices and there is a socket available for a (not included) 5 volt power adaptor to keep high powered devices humming.
Not completely ineffectual but hardly satisfying.
