At a glance
Expert's Rating
Pros
- Charges (nearly) everything Apple
- Premium quality long cable
Cons
- Takes up second port space on MacBook
- Lightning users lose out
Our Verdict
The Nomad Universal Cable for Apple Watch is a neat, versatile all-in-one charging solution that should streamline your desk drawer of its tangle of spare cables, and is the perfect single-cable travelling companion for Apple users everywhere.
Price When Reviewed
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Best Pricing Today
Price When Reviewed
$85
Best Prices Today: Nomad Universal Cable for Apple Watch
The thing about cables is that you’ve either got too many of them messing up your desk drawer or can’t find one when you really need it—usually leading to you buying yet another.
The Universal Cable for Apple Watch from Nomad is a clever solution to save you doubling, tripling or quintupling up on cables.
It’s a simple idea but one done with a very smart eye on design and functionality. It looks great enough to have come straight from Apple’s design labs. Indeed, it looks better than Apple’s own charging cables.
MacBooks ship with a 1m Apple USB-C to MagSafe 3 Cable, and iPhones have a 1m USB-C to USB-C cable coiled up in the box. The Apple Watch has its own 1m Apple Watch Magnetic Fast Charger to USB-C Cable. Inside the AirPods box you’ll find a 1m USB‑C Charge Cable, which is what you’ll also find in the box of a Vision Pro, although longer at 1.5m.
Own all these Apple devices, and that’s more cables than you really need.
Nomad’s neat solution is a USB-C charging cable that you can use to power a MacBook, iPhone 15/16/17, iPad (since March 2022), Apple Watch, AirPods and Vision Pro—although not all at the same time. Lightning users (iPhone 14 and earlier) and owners of old AirPods, I am sorry, are left behind.
Simon Jary
At each end of the 1.5m cable is a standard USB-C connector, but at one there’s a wireless charging puck built into the cable. This can be used to power up any Apple Watch or wirelessly chargeable AirPods case (AirPods Pro 2 or AirPods 4 ANC).
Simon Jary
While your MacBook is keeping its charge you can slip off your Watch and hang it onto the charging pad or rest the AirPods case there instead. You don’t need to charge two devices at once, of course, it works perfectly well just as a standard USB-C cable or just with the device on the puck—but the extra functionality is there when you need it.
The cable can charge at 100W (PD 3.0), which is enough to fast-charge any MacBook except the 16-inch MacBook Pro, which requires a 140W PD 3.1 cable. It will charge the 16-inch Pro, but not as fast as a 140W cable or MagSafe 3 charger.
You’ll need a USB-C wall or desktop charger, of course. Check out our favorites in our tests of the best USB-C chargers.
It can also be used to transfer data, although it’s no Thunderbolt cable in this regard, being limited—like most long USB-C charging cables—to a 480Mbps USB 2.0 speed.
Simon Jary
Design
Available in either black (Nomad calls it Carbide) or white, the Nomad Universal Cable is a beauty if you are a connoisseur of cables. It’s reassuringly thick and nicely braided. For extra durability it features Kevlar 29 (K29) Aramid Fiber reinforcement, so you can probably shoot it if the fancy takes you.
Even the integrated cable tie it comes with is special, built with vulcanized Liquid Silicone Rubber (LSR) that Nomad claims is “near-indestructible” as it shouldn’t fray or tear with everyday use.
One caveat is that the wireless puck is so close to the end of the cable that it gets in the way of the second Thunderbolt port on a MacBook. if you regularly max out using all the MacBook’s Thunderbolt ports this may raise a problem. Otherwise, it’s no matter.
Price
The Nomad Universal Cable for Apple Watch is priced at $85 / £69 / €79 / CA$119 / AU$129. This might seem expensive for a single cable but it should mean you never need buy another one again or have too many spares for each Apple device. Take just one cable on your travels, and it will be this one.
You can buy more functional wireless multi-device chargers—read our recommendations of the best Apple Watch chargers and best MagSafe wireless iPhone chargers—but none are as simple and ambidextrous as this one.
Simon Jary
Should you buy the Nomad Universal Cable for Apple Watch?
The Nomad Universal Cable for Apple Watch is a neat, versatile all-in-one charging solution that should streamline your desk drawer of its tangle of spare cables, and is the perfect single-cable travelling companion for Apple users everywhere.
