How to Charge an iRiver Clix without a USB Cable
One of the slickest flash memory mp3 media devices on the market right now is the iRiver Clix. With 2GB of storage, a wonderfully bright screen, video capable and a super sleek form factor, the Clix represents a considerable upgrade to their old ventures with the h10 series devices.
One shortcoming that we couldn’t help noticing, however, was the lack of recharging options. Sure, it could charge with the included USB cable while connected to the PC, but what about times when you needed a charge and didn’t want to bring your computer with you (ie. Did someone say family vacation?!?)
We checked the market for a regular AC wall or DC car charger and, while we did find a couple of options, most of them had one Achilles heel--when the charger was plugged in, it would put the Clix in USB mode, making it impossible to use the device while it was recharging.
This challenge piqued the interest of our engineering group, which set out looking for a better solution. They found that most other charging designs were working on a partial understanding of the Clix baseport pinouts, specifically they omitted the charging ID pin which would keep the device from switching in to data mode.
As a result, we came out with our own solution and recently released the first (and we believe still the only) full complement of charging accessories (ie. AC, DC and AA battery) on the market today. These types of cables still aren’t even available from iRiver themselves!