Woolet 2.0 and Woolet Travel XL 2.0 review: Never lose your wallet again (unless it runs out of battery)

What a time to be alive! As I write this, I have just updated my wallet’s firmware. This isn’t a sentence I ever thought I’d have to type, but it was at least a pretty painless experience. My wallet has, as far as I’m aware, yet to crash. In that respect, at least, it’s like every wallet I’ve ever owned.

“Who in their right mind wants their wallet to be battery-powered?” you might ask. The short answer is people who really worry about losing it. An embedded Bluetooth receiver and battery mean you can’t move away from your wallet without your smartphone warning you. And it manages to offer this extra piece of mind without costing the Earth; £106 for the Woolet 2.0 and £122 for the Woolet Travel XL might sound pricey, but isn’t unheard of for a quality leather wallet.[gallery:4]

The question is: does the Woolet meet that brief, and is its smart functionality worth having?

Woolet 2.0 and Woolet Travel XL 2.0 review: Design

The answer to the first half of that question is undoubtedly “yes.” This is both a smartwallet and a smart wallet.

We were sent a Woolet 2.0 in black leather and a Woolet Travel XL 2.0 in distressed brown leather. The former is super-slim – in fact, it’s a little bit too dinky for my needs, with only four slots for cards, and a pretty limited change pocket. Still, while disappointing for serial receipt-collectors like me, the flipside of this is that this is a slim wallet, even with its added smarts. Smartwatches need space for a chunky battery to power their intelligence – the Woolet just looks like a regular wallet. And that’s a good thing.[gallery:0]

The Woolet Travel XL 2.0, on the other hand, is a beast. It’s pocket-book-sized, with space for six cards and a passport, and even has a mini pen included, slotted in a discrete loop attached the spine. The pen is stumpy enough that you wouldn’t want to write a novel with it, but it’s handy to have if you need to sign something. Despite its capacity, though, the Travel XL has a slim design that means that, surprisingly, it fits in jean pockets without much resistance.

Both are finished with a somewhat unnecessary pin shaped like the “W” in the Woolet logo. To add a touch of class, this is coated in 24-carat gold.

Wallets are, of course, a very personal thing, and while I’d rather have a middle ground between the two sizes, you can’t argue that they’re not nicely designed and don’t suffer at all aesthetically for the electronics hidden within.[gallery:11]

So, to the all-important question. Why does this wallet have electronic components in the first place? Inside is a Bluetooth receiver that pairs with a smartphone app (iOS and Android are supported) and effectively makes it impossible to leave behind without your phone nagging you that it’s no longer in range. This nag arrives in the form of a notification with an accompanying sound of your choice – bafflingly, a dog barking, the German national anthem or the Borussia Dortmund hymn. No, me neither.

If these notifications get annoying, you can set up trusted places where the Woolet will relax when it’s left unaccompanied. Doing this is as simple as pinning locations on the map, or letting your phone’s GPS do the legwork, and tagging it when you’re at the office or at home. You can also adjust the sensitivity, allowing notifications to only trigger when you’re “far” or “very far” from your wallet.[gallery:14]

If your wallet is in range but you can’t find the darned thing, you can make it play a little ditty. The company claims it can reach up to 90dB in volume, but this seems hugely optimistic to me – with the background hum of the office, it was audible, but I imagine it would be hard to pin down if lost under a pile of dirty clothes (don’t judge me).

Continues on page 2

At this point, you might be thinking: “hang on: isn’t that a bit similar to the Tile?” Well, yes, it is, but with two key differences. Awkwardly, one is a big positive, while the other is a big negative. Do you want the good news or the bad news first?

Let’s start with the bad news. One of the best things about Tile is that it has a huge community of users with the app installed. That means that if you misplace something with a Tile attached you can report it as lost, at which point every other Tile owner will then be inadvertently on the lookout for your missing item. The site has dozens of case studies of items showing up all over the world in this manner, from stolen goods to items misplaced on holiday.[gallery:8]

Perhaps aware that the Woolet community will always be smaller (Tiles are more versatile and a fifth of the price), the company’s answer to the problem is less satisfying. Every Woolet ships with a ten-digit serial code/QR combo that, once registered, connects your Woolet to a central database. The idea is that when you find a misplaced Woolet, you enter the code printed on a card and get the owner’s details to return it to them. Hmmmm – colour me distinctly unconvinced.

Of course, the whole basis of Woolet is that this should never happen anyway. Your phone will tell you if the Woolet has got away, after all. But Bluetooth isn’t always 100% reliable – as I discovered when the app buzzed me to tell me my wallet was missing, when both were sitting on my desk in front of me.[gallery:13]

But here’s where the Woolet gets a vital hit on the Tile: you can recharge it. The battery is hidden away deep in the lining of the wallet, but thanks to wireless charging, you won’t ever need to replace it like the Tile. The battery is said to last six months – something we weren’t able to test for obvious reasons – but there’s no reason for that to be unrealistic given how little it has to do.

It charges with any Qi standard charger, but should you not have one to hand, you can order an accompanying leather charging pad from the Woolet store. These go for £33, which seems a bit of overkill for me given the Woolet is something that only needs charging once every six months. On top of that, a leather block with a USB lead poking out the end feels a touch incongruous – like pairing a cowboy jacket with Google Glass. Far better to pay £3 more for an Ikea lamp with built-in wireless charging for my money. I you like the look of the pad, however, we found nothing inherently wrong with the models Woolet sent us, and they can be used to charge other wireless devices as well.[gallery:17]

Woolet 2.0 and Woolet Travel XL 2.0 review: Verdict

The Woolet isn’t going to appeal to everyone, and if you were unconvinced by the need for a smart wallet at the start of this review, I doubt you’re converted now. I suspect that the kind of person who instinctively buys a Woolet is the kind of person to whom its utility would be immediately obvious.

That said, the Woolet does what it sets out to do really nicely, and they haven’t fallen into the trap of charging the world for it. Yes, you can get a wallet for a tenner if you really want – and you can give it similar functionality as the Woolet with a £30 Tile Slim; equally, though, you can pay well over £100 for a quality leather wallet without smarts, and the Woolet is a style match for plenty of those.[gallery:1]

In short, if you’re looking for a stylish new wallet, then the Woolet is worth a look, even if the idea of needing to charge a wallet leaves you feeling cold. It’s a feature that’s invisible until you need it, and when you do it could save you a whole lot of grief.