The PIO Go Bag Problem Nobody Talks About: Which USB Cable Do You Actually Need?
Every PIO has had this moment.
You are standing in a school parking lot, command post, town hall hallway, EOC, media staging area or temporary office trying to do six things at once. Your phone is dying. Your portable battery has a USB-C port. The wall charger someone handed you has USB-A. Your department phone is one connector. Your personal phone is another. Your smartwatch is at 8 percent. Someone needs a photo uploaded, a statement approved, a post scheduled and a chief briefed. Oh, and you need to post three more Instagram reels and are trying to do battery percentage math in your head.
The cable you packed is the wrong one.
Welcome to the least glamorous, most annoying part of emergency public information work: cable chaos.
PIOs spend a lot of time thinking about laptops, cameras, chargers, laptops and mobile hotspots. We do not spend enough time thinking about the humble USB cable. That is a mistake, because the cable is the thing that connects your entire operation. A dead iPhone is not a communications tool, and a solar charger pack is useless if you can’t plug it into your device.
Why this matters for PIOs
PIOs work in environments that are unpredictable by nature. You may be posting from your office at 9 a.m. and standing behind yellow tape at 10:15. You may have access to a full desk setup, or you may be balancing a laptop on the hood of a cruiser. You may have your own gear, or you may be borrowing power from a firefighter or a school custodian or a folding table full of mystery chargers.
The goal is not to carry every cable ever made. The goal is to reduce the number of times you find yourself saying, “Does anyone have a charger for this?”
The cable problem has gotten worse
For years, the answer was simple: pack a phone charger. Then came USB-A, USB-C, Lightning, Micro USB, Apple Watch chargers, power banks, tablets, hotspots, earbuds, camera accessories, rechargeable lights and department-issued devices that may be several generations behind your own personal gear.
The problem is not that we do not own enough cables. Most of us own a drawer full of them. The problem is that the right cable is usually in the drawer, in the car, on the nightstand, in the other bag or attached to the charger you forgot.
A simple Go Bag solution: carry a multi-charging cable
One smart solution is to add a multi-charging cable to your PIO Go Bag.
A good multi-charging cable gives you several common charging options in one cord. Instead of packing separate USB-C, USB-A, Lightning/IP, Micro USB and watch cables, you can carry one compact cable that covers most of the devices you are likely to encounter.
One example worth considering is the Firsting Travel Essentials 4-in-2 Multi Charging Cable with built-in iWatch charger. It is sold as a two-pack of 5-foot braided cables and includes USB-A and USB-C input options, along with multiple device connectors and a built-in watch charger.
That combination matters for PIO work because it solves several real-world problems at once. You can plug into older USB-A wall blocks and newer USB-C chargers, and you can reduce the number of cables in your bag.
A few important cautions
A multi-charging cable is a great Go Bag item, but it should not be misunderstood.
One cable should be your entire charging strategy. Your Go Bag should still include a wall charger, a portable battery, and ideally a second backup cable. Redundancy is the whole point.
Also, cables like this are still dependent on the power supply they are plugged into, and they generally do not charge multiple devices at once.
For multiple devices, you need a lot of power. I recommend at least 200 watts. “Brick” chargers are still useful for this.
The bottom line
IMPORTANT NOTE: Most modern laptops use USB-C charging cables. Those cables are PERFECTLY SAFE for your iPhone, and will provide some of the fastest charging speeds for your phone or tablet.
PIO work is hard enough without losing time to preventable gear problems.
When an incident is unfolding, you should be thinking about accuracy, timing, approvals, media needs, public safety messaging and what the public needs to know next. You should not be digging through your bag wondering why every cable you own is the wrong one.