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Twelve South ButterFly is a 2-in-1 MagSafe iPhone and and Apple Watch travel charger that folds into a tiny package. It offers fast-charging and can serve as a kickstand for your handset.
It’s a bit pricy, but an innovative design makes it very portable. I put the gadget to the test.
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Twelve South ButterFly review
If you travel more than a couple of times a year, you should really have a travel charger. No one wants to spend part of their precious vacation buying a charging cable for their Apple Watch because they left their only other one at home.
I prefer a multi-device charger rather than bringing individual cables. It’s less clutter on my hotel bedside, and less hassle — plug in one device to power up your iPhone and Apple Watch. And AirPods, too.
Twelve South ButterFly can do that, and a lot more.
Table of contents: Twelve South ButterFly review
So very portable
This gizmo starts out looking like an aluminum pill. It’s 2.3 inches by 0.9 inches, with very rounded edges. It fits easily in a bag, and is almost pocketable. Open it to reveal a round iPhone MagSafe charging mat and an Apple Watch charger connected by a rubberized strip … hence the ButterFly name.
There’s plenty of room for my 6.7-inch iPhone 15 Plus. And magnets in handset and charger keep the two connected and lined up properly so the device gets wireless power. Alternatively, this same mat can be used to juice up an AirPods case that supports wireless charging.
The Apple Watch charger sits in a fold-up stand so you can use the wearable’s fantastic nightstand mode while you sleep.
TwelveSouth ButterFly works as an iPhone stand, too
Plenty of travel chargers work as Apple Watch stands. Not many also serve as iPhone stands. The Twelve South ButterFly does. Put it on the back of your iPhone (magnets, remember?), and the accessory will prop up the handset in landscape mode. It’s great for watching a video on a long flight. Plus, it can charge your iPhone while you’re watching the movie or show.
My iPhone 15 Plus is wide enough that I need to extend the Apple Watch stand for this trick to work, though. If I don’t, the two parts of the ButterFly get pushed apart by downward pressure from the handset. Still, this design is clever. It’s so flexible.
Ready to go international
Naturally, for ButterFly to charge your devices, it must be connected to a power source. The product comes with everything you need. There’s a 3-foot cable that plugs into a USB-C port in the Apple Watch section of Twelve South’s gizmo.
The other end plugs into a wall charger that can get power from the bundled wall charger with its own USB-C port. This comes with a range of clip-on plugs for the United States, Europe, Japan, Australia, etc. All this fits into a black bag that comes with the product to keep everything together when traveling.
And remember: You don’t have to use the included charger. ButterFly works just as well with the USB-C charger that came with your MacBook. You can even plug it into your notebook to get power.
Fast charge performance
Twelve South ButterFly sends up to 15W to an iPhone. That’s the maximum available via wireless charging. In my real-world tests, when working at the full 15W, the charger raised the battery level of my iPhone 15 Plus by 9% in 10 minutes. But the handset slows the rate at which it receives power as the battery gets closer to full. Much of the time, it’s taking in power at 10W, which raises the battery level about 17% in half an hour.
The Apple Watch charger can fast charge the wearable, too. If you own a newer model, expect it to be fully powered up in about an hour. Of course, the accessory works with older Apple Watches, too (like mine), just not as quickly. On my elderly Apple Watch Series 3, the battery level goes up about 20% in half an hour.
In my tests, the included wall charger put out about 30W, which is more than ButterFly needs. But you also can use it to juice up your MacBook. The process won’t be particularly quick, but the product will do the job.
Twelve South video
The maker of the accessory filmed a video to show off its capabilities in action:
Twelve South ButterFly review: Final thoughts
This is one of the best-designed travel chargers I’ve ever used. The accessory can wirelessly power up your iPhone and Apple Watch at top speed, but it’s not much larger than an AirPods case.
Its aluminum exterior makes it tough enough to take almost anywhere — and it comes with the international power adapters to make that possible.
★★★★★
Pricing
The best multidevice wireless travel chargers for Apple devices are never cheap. In essence, you’re paying for convenience. Twelve South ButterFly is no exception: It costs $129.95.
Where to buy: Twelve South or Apple or Amazon
Before you declare that price outrageous, let me point out that the (discontinued) Apple MagSafe Duo went for $129, while the mophie 3-in-1 Travel Charger with MagSafe costs $149.95.
Twelve South provided Cult of Mac with a review unit for this article. See our reviews policy, and check out more in-depth reviews of Apple-related items.