So I received them yesterday and just tore one apart. This was a bit of a challenge as the housing is thick and has a slight rubbery/silicone feel to it. I also suspect that the halves were epoxied together. With a combination of a spudger, a pry tool, a utility knife, and with blunt force impact with both a hammer and being bounced on concrete; it eventually came open. Unsure if it would still be operable, but the USB-A port would need to be gingerly straightened out.

Once the shell is finally split apart, this is what you see:

There is an LG 18650 soldered to the board. A plastic lens of sorts for the charging status LEDs, two tiny screws for the USB-A/Micro-USB ports and one tiny screw holding the board to the bottom shell. There are other mounting holes which were unpopulated, Possibly due to my extreme tear down, or more likely because they were never put there in the first place.

So was it worth $5 for three of them? There are decent cells in these. Mind you prior to tear down I checked to see that the battery was discharged. Plugged my phone into it and nothing happened. Possibly DOA, more likely though these have been sitting around for a very long time – They appear to have been featured at CES over four years ago. But even if the cells are good, it’s going to take a fair amount of effort to to cannibalise these and I didn’t see much of interest on the circuit board itself.

I gave one to my DH who might use it in a pinch, and I may leave the other one whole too, but would never leave the house with one of them visible! I might also decide one day to make a video of my comically inept tear down with one of the others.

I’ll take one for the team I guess… Should be able to pry the 18650s out of them, plus 3 extra short usb cables (pity they aren’t USB-C) heck the carabiners might come in handy… Just wouldn’t want to have these seen in public… Could get you arrested or worse!

/buy