Seriously, someone forgot to tell us about Bluelounge and if you haven’t heard – boy you have no clue what you are missing. Here is a company that makes products we really need (if anyone has us for Secret Santa, hint hint). Almost everyone one of their products has to do with hiding and storing cables, to be clear – those are the ones we really could use, today we tackle the one that does not, Bluelounge’s Cool Feet. (We secretly wish we could be reviewing their StudioDesk, but we all have to start small)

For those readers who are sick of Charlie reviewing $200 products, rejoice – Blue Feet cost a little over $10 and for those who are sick of TheMacFeed turning into TheAudioFeed, rejoice – these have nothing to do with subwoofer reproduction, at least for now. Cool Feet are glorified suction cups that attach to the bottom of your notebook to improve airflow, while allowing the user to easily remove them for storage. At the same time, they are sturdy, really sturdy – our case study will come later.

Out Of the Box

Inside the small box are four Cool Feet: two large and two small; adhesive pads for all four cups and a carrying case. So here’s the deal, these might suction to plain aluminum – in all honesty we had mixed results, they definitely will not attach to something like our Speck hard shell, for that you need the adhesive pads. After you place them where you want, its a matter of simply pushing the suction cups onto the pads and installation is done. Our mixed results with the suction cups and the bare aluminum go as follows: one cup would attach, another one would only partially attach, by the time that we were on the third suction cup, the second one had fallen off – then it was just cat and mouse game. With the adhesive tape they are sturdy (once again, we shall get to that later). Removing them is a breeze, simply just pull them off, thats it.

Let’s Talk About Cool

Unless your computer is kept in a sauna, you cover the heat vents with duck tape or store your computer in the fridge – none of which are going to be good for your computer’s health, there is no way to control heat. Fan controls, cooling pads, magic wands or whatever it is that you fancy – there really is no way that you can consistently keep your temperature consistent. If your run processor intensive applications there is going to be heat and fans, what some of these solutions can do is curb the amount of heat. Do the Cool Feet do that? Yes and no. On a flat hard surface where they have the opportunity to elevate the notebook we observed cooling up to 5 degrees fahrenheit after an hour of use. Some notes on that: 1. It was never consistent (i.e. sometimes it was four degrees, then five, etc.) 2. we have no way of really keeping a constant for the test – sure, we had the exact same applications open and we were keeping a baseline of the same amount of power usage, but room temperature, etc. 3. We imagine that there is a direct correlation between the higher temperature and the higher temperature cooling, so if you keep your laptop closer to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, as opposed to 180 – the benefits may not be as significant. On our lap, we found no recordable difference. When we want to manipulate our computer to get to high temperatures quickly, we know the trick: put it on a blanket. Unfortunately, the Cool Feet aren’t effective at combatting blankets, beds and pillows.

Some Hidden Features

The one thing the Cool Feet did allow us to do was run cables underneath it, this was nice. It should be noted that Bluelounge makes numerous other products specifically to combat massive amounts of cables and their clutter. The real reason we are still using our Cool Feet is because it allows us to run cables back and forth on our desk. In addition, if we were to say accidentally knock over some water, the elevation would assure us that the puddle on our desk wasn’t on our MacBook. Bluelounge claims that there is ergonomical advantages to the angle that it rests the computer on, we don’t have much of a preference either way, but we’ll take their word for it.

The Sturdiness that Shocked Us

The real hidden feature was an important one – the suction cups. These things come off easy, but they also stay on. Seems like a contradiction – well it is. They come off easy if you lift up one part of the cup and then pull; if you try to just rip them off – good luck. As the picture shows, we even placed our 17″ MacBook Pro with Cool Feet attached on the side of the chair and let it dangle and it held long enough for us to snap a couple of pictures. While we don’t recommend doing this on a daily basis, if anyone had any questions, they should be answered.

In the End

We are still using the product, that is the simplest test that we can offer to you. The product does what it is supposed to. Sure, we really don’t have much of a use for it when it’s not on hard surfaces, but we appreciate the extra lift that it give us for both heat purposes and storage. We really think that you should think about whether you need the product and what it is that you want it to do. We always have suggested the best cooling method for a MacBook Pro is a decent sized textbook, this does the same thing: lifts the notebook significantly above the surface allowing air to dissapate. At $12.95 this is a much better deal then anyone of those powered notebook coolers – as we find it more effective and way less obtrusive. Given it’s price, it’s hard to give it anything less then 4.0/5 stars, which is what TheMacFeed gives Bluelounge’s Cool Feet. You can purchase some Cool Feet directly from Bluelounge or from our friends at RADTech.