- In this video, we're going to be taking a look
at the Cocoon Grid-It.
I'm Tom, the founder of Pack Hacker.
We share our travel tips and tricks,
we do guides and reviews
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Nathan, our video editor, contributor,
as well as vlogger over at his own channel,
Always a Friday, has been using the Cocoon Grid-It
for well over a year.
So I'm excited to jump in and share our thoughts with you.
[upbeat music playing]
Cocoon's Grid-It organizer is effectively
a flat panel featuring a unique weave
of rubberized bands designed to hold
and organize all of your gadgets.
When you first take a look at this thing,
it's actually pretty simple.
You slot your gadgets in like your hard drives,
batteries and wires; placing them in whatever
configuration works best for you.
And that's what's really great about this thing.
It's completely customizable.
There are hundreds of ways to fit
all of your different items in.
Just note though that if you plan on utilizing
all of the space, it may take a little while
to figure out the best configuration
to put all of your items in.
However, once you crack it, you're good to go.
The rubberized dots on the elastic bands here
are what really brings all of this together.
They're grippy enough so that
if you slot something inside of it,
it shouldn't be going anywhere.
Because of the different lengths and widths
of the bands on the Grid-It, you can fit
various sized objects in here.
So it works perfectly with something like
an external hard drive.
But it works equally as well with smaller items,
like an SD card holder or a small camera battery,
because the rubberized texture locks them in.
If you can fit the item within the bands,
you can pretty much trust that it'll stay in place.
You can put two bands over it
just for that added security
like we do with the hard drive, as you can see here.
But we do feel there is a limit to the size
of object you can fit in this thing.
We sometimes put a MacBook charger in
but it's pretty heavy, and we don't do it often
as it makes it feel a tad lopsided.
We've actually never had anything fall out
of the Cocoon Grid-It
and we've become really trusting in just how good
the Grid-It technology is.
That being said though,
we are really careful with how we use it.
It's very, very rarely put in the main compartment
of a bag where items and gadgets could snag
on stuff and they come loose.
We found the ideal place to store your Grid-It
is in either a bag's secondary compartment
or in a large mesh pocket.
One downside to this thing is that it offers
no protection whatsoever.
It's there to organize your gadgets, not protect them.
So just be careful with where you put it.
Make sure that the bag's compartment it's in
is padded enough, you're not throwing it around at all.
You know, if you've got important items in this thing,
just make sure you treat it
like it's got important items in.
The medium-sized Grid-It organizer that we've been testing
is 12 inches in width,
.375 inches in depth and 8 inches in height.
And we found this size to be perfect for one bag travel.
It'll fit into any day pack
or any travel bag with ease,
and of course it's just big enough to hold
all of the essential gadgets.
If you're after something a bit smaller or larger though,
fear not, Cocoon has you covered.
They offer lots of different sizes -
from a seven by five inch extra small,
to an 11 by 15 inch large.
The weight of the medium-sized organizer
comes in at .731 pounds.
But, of course, that's with nothing inside of it.
The greatest consideration with weight
comes when you start adding things in.
Of course, little bits like SD card holders
and USB sticks aren't going to add much weight.
But once you start chucking in external hard drives
and even a MacBook charger,
this thing is really gonna add up.
Even though the whole front panel of this thing
is made up of the Grid-It weave,
it's still rocking come cool additional features.
What we really like is the back-zipped compartment.
Now you want to make sure that the items you do
put in here are relatively flat.
But it's great for stuff like passports,
and we even used it as a little hidden compartment
to store some extra cash while we were traveling.
And there's also a small loop tab on one of the sides
of this thing.
Now we're not 100% sure what it's for
but you could maybe attach your keys to it
or hang it up on a wall, something like that.
We've actually never used it but it is there
if you want to.
After three years of testing our medium-sized
Cocoon Grid-It organizer, it's held up remarkably well.
Now it is usually safely tucked away in a bag
or sat on a table, so that probably adds
to it keeping so well.
But still, three years is a pretty long time.
The only notable signs of use are
that it's a tiny bit frayed and discolored
around the edges.
It certainly doesn't look brand new
but it definitely doesn't look tatty either.
We've also found the elasticity of the bands
to be really good.
If you put something larger in,
like that MacBook charger that we mentioned earlier on,
once it's taken out the band will just flex
back to the original position.
You'd expect a small loss of tension
but the Grid-It really impressed here.
And as we mentioned earlier on,
we have never had anything fall out of this thing.
And considering we've been using it for three years,
that really is quite remarkable.
As you can see here, we've got heavier items
like an external hard drive.
Smaller items, where there's maybe a little bit less tension
in the bands, with the USB stick and the SD cards.
Once you shake that around,
there's just no movement whatsoever.
It really is great.
See?
Everything is still firmly in place.
Incredible.
So moving on to some pros -
the Grid-it technology is really great
and it will hold everything firmly in place.
The zipped back compartment is
a really cool additional feature.
And this thing is completely customizable
with endless configurations of how you can fit all
of your gadgets in.
No on to some cons -
It does take a little while to figure out
the best configuration for all of your gadgets.
It's not ideal for bulkier, heavier items
and it doesn't protect your items whatsoever.
The Cocoon Grid-It organizer is probably an item
you don't realize you need until you have one.
We've all become so used to gadgets lying around,
stuffed in the bottom of bags or pouches,
that you wouldn't think to go out of the way
to actually use a Grid-It.
But if you make the effort,
after a little while this is an item
that you would be lost without.
And once you have all of your important gadgets
neatly organized and in one place,
it's likely you'll never go back.
Thanks for taking a look at our review
on the Cocoon Grid-It.
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Thanks for taking a look.
We'll see you in the next video.
- It'll beep blah blah.
We're good.
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