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An Interesting Idea from France: Phone Charging Lockers

Welock offers convenience for customers without liability for businesses

By Rain Noe - November 27, 2020

in Tech

Back when we could go to bars and cafes, it was common to see a pile of customers' phones behind the counter, all being charged as a courtesy. France-based café owner Sébastien Cardi did this for his customers--and one day accidentally spilled coffee on a customer's phone. In search of a way to provide charging service without being responsible for customers' phones, he subsequently developed Welock.

Welock is a wall- or bollard-mounted system of small charging lockers. The idea is that bars, gyms, restaurants, etc. pay to have them installed and provide them to their customers as a free service (presumably to draw foot traffic). Customers get a code or a key, then lock their phones inside as they charge.

The Welock lockers are already a hit in France (the company has been around since 2016):

The question is, do you think something like this would fly in the 'States? Public-use lockers in train stations are a common sight in Europe, Scandinavia and parts of Asia, but I feel like we Americans rarely interact with lockers outside of gyms (or Amazon drop sites), and I wonder if Yankee uptake would be as robust.

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Anthony Towers

3 years ago

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Been around for years.
I don't trust them, I don't plug my phone into unknow sockets

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Tool Nerd

3 years ago

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I've had the opportunity to install and support a few different makes/models of cellphone charging lockers.

1) One of the biggest frustrations for supporting the lockers is the frequency with which people break the charging tips...With more people switching to USB C equipped devices hopefully the breakage will decrease, I have tried bulk cheap cables even premium rugged cables and it seems like it does not matter in the slightest .
2) People not shutting the doors properly, the main locker model I support will not start charging until the door is fully closed and the LED in the compartment will then change from Green to red to show that it is occupied, I have witness people plugging in and walking off .....
3) "forgot" my code you end up having to develop a security protocol to retrieve peoples phones if they get locked out. Lucky the machine has two ways to override both via the built in computer or manually opening the back of the machine and unlatching the lock should power get lost .

The biggest gripe I have is that not all machines are super modular so if the power supply/control board for a locker fails you have to replace a board that has outputs for 5+ lockers

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Jackie Wyant

3 years ago

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These are very common in São Paulo, Brazil. You see them most often in malls. They are heavily used. Your 'key' is your credit/debit card. All of which use chip technology, instead of swipe. I cannot speak to maintenance costs, not do I know 100% if it's a free service or not, having never had need to use one. But they are quite popular here.

Until the USA fully adopts and uses card chip technology, thus mitigating any issues with skimming card swipes, I don't see this ever taking off in the US. Americans are entirely either too paranoid or too ignorant to use them properly.

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Dee An

3 years ago

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I'm fairly sure I read of mobile phone charging lockers quite a few years ago in a profile of martial artist and restaurant owner Jackie Chan. It was noted that he had such lockers installed in his restaurant, IIRC.

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Mark H

3 years ago

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There's been a company called Charge It Spot (dot com) that has been around since 2011 doing that in the US, Canada, Mexico, and Australia. I think they make the units I've seen in Nordstrom.

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