Cable Camel - 4-pack Singles product reviews

Hubby and I have always loved using cable holders. We find them really useful on the bedside cabinets for phone chargers and cables so that your phone stays put throughout the night. Initially we'd purchased some plastic cheapies from Aliexpress which promptly took the varnish off and ended up in my toddlers mouth quick smart when he worked out he could pull them off.

We were really interested to put Cable Camel to the test to see if they could pass the toddler test and the no damage to furniture test. Definitely not an easy test to pass but they passed with flying colours! My boy watched as I attached them on to the bedside cabinet and I could see him eyeing them up! Of course like any curious toddler it didn't take long before he tried to rip them off and he wasn't successful, yahoo! We tried removing them from the furniture and just as the product claims there was no damage and no sticky residue. We also loved how light weight and small they are. It's so much nicer to be supporting a company and product which is proudly made in New Zealand rather than another mass made Chinese product.

I feel like you're only limited by your imagination when it comes to uses for Cable Camel and we're looking forward to exploring some new uses for them when we purchase more. They're really reasonable at $5.99 and with a variety of colours your bound to find something which will blend in with your decor.

Having already tried other cable tidies, we found they either unstuck within the day, or stuck so well they ruined the finishing on the furniture. But The Cable Holder did neither of these things!

We first tried it on our formica entertainment unit as a way to tidy up some of the many cables we have for the television, Xbox and Sky box. The single holders that we have to try were able to hold one power cable, or a couple of other smaller cables, but I think the multi cable holders would be better when lots of different electronic units are together. We then tried it on a glass unit to keep our phone chargers handy. They always fall down beside the unit and can be so annoying to find again. And once again, no problems attaching and they are still stuck on 2 weeks later! 2 phone cables easily fitted into the single cable holder (an iPhone and a micro charger).

I love how they won't weaken over time like the ugly plastic holders we've used before, and they feel much stronger and sturdier than plastic also. The plastic ones I find always break off when used too often, but these foam ones have more flexibility and spring back to position.

At $5.99 for a pack of 4, I find that really reasonable. But being only available online (and through TradeMe which I thought was interesting but not bad as you have buyer protection), bumps the price up by another $4.50 which does make them rather pricey and I think more than I would pay for them.

For years, I could never keep a pen within reach on my desk. It's not so much that my desk is a macro-world illustration of the quantum "Observer Effect" where the pen is both there and not-there at the same time, and only falls into one of those boxes depending on a random trigger - usually proportional to my level of desperation at needing a pen at that exact moment. It's more a case of... I just keep walking off with them and forgetting where the heck I left them until well after I actually needed it.

Then I discovered some neat little gripper-clips that look like old-style robot claws. When you pushed a pen, or cable, or whatever, into them they sprung closed, and tugging on said object caused the clip to spring open. Problem was, after a month or so, they worn out and just fell apart. They weren't cheap to replace either, I must add.

Now, my newest saviour has arrived - the 1-hump Cable Camel! I opted for the singles mainly because they all had the large-bore holes in them, unlike the multi-cable designs where there are a range of holes in each unit. I wanted something that held a pen without distorting the holder itself, and the singles were PERFECT! I popped two of them on the side of the small set of cubbies that borders one side of my workstation, so now I have two pens within easy reach that will NOT: a) go walkies, b) get buried under paperwork, and c) get crushed by misplaced heavy items I am looking at or working on.

So simple to install - I prepped the area by wiping it down firmly with an alcohol swab to remove any dust, dirt and oil residues that may have accumulated there from my fingers. Peeling off the backing to expose the adhesive, I put a pen in the holder to give it extra solidity, and pressed it firmly onto the spot I wanted it to stay.

That was over a month ago now, and by this time I would have been onto my second, or even third, spring-clip robot-claw thing... but these are doing an excellent job and are suffering no distortion, no sagginess, and are not peeling off the cubbies at all. Best of all, I can slide the pen down from the top, up from the bottom, or shove it in straight on, and it grips the pens gently but firmly. What more could one ask for!

At $6 (round money) for a 4-pack, they work out at $1.50 each. That may not sound too inexpensive but compared to $8 for a 6-pack of robot-claws that wear out in less time, they have already worked out no more expensive and they're still going. If they stay this good for even as little as one more month, they will have saved me $10 at least. If I treat them right, I'm betting I'll get another 5 months *at least* out of them, making a long-term saving of more than $50. That's mighty good value in my books!

Having proven themselves in the office, the remaining two singles are destined for life in other rooms - 1 in the kitchen for noting down adjustments to recipes etc. and the other by the front door next to my last-minute heading-out-the-door rememberances and to-do's.

Overall, these are great little doodads, and you really need to try them to understand why you have been working the hard way without them!