Review: The Tropo Air Pump
Extremely Small and Affordable All-Purpose Air Pump: http://bit.ly/2OoeNDr
Being a dad to 3 young boys and full time video editor, my time is limited. Before kids I would love to just sit around and blow up air mattresses with my mouth or blow up balloons until my cheeks were sore and tingly. But now time is a limited commodity and I’d rather not spend an hour blowing up a water slide for the backyard when I could be barbecuing while the slide inflates on its own. The only trouble is that cheap air pumps are usually terrible and require foot pumps or some ridiculous exercise and automatic pumps are typically expensive or require something like 6 “C” batteries immediately adding at least another $10 to your pump. This is where Tropo the self-described “most reliable and affordable air pump” comes into play. The Tropo air pump is made by Flextail Gear who previously has sold ultra portable and tiny air pumps and camping lights.
With three young boys, my wife and I are constantly doing something. Whether its baseball all weekend long, going to Disneyland, or blowing up a swimming pool for the boys to play in when it gets to be 100 degrees out here in Southern California. We just don’t have time to blow up toys that take an hour if we can help it. Tropo’s tiny air pump is shorter than a Tall Coffee from Starbucks. I can throw it in any backpack or camera bag to take on the road or go camping. The beauty of the Tropo is its dual functionality: inflation and deflation. It comes with 4 nozzles: large-caliber air nozzle for typical indoor air mattresses, sharp air nozzle for smaller objects like beach balls or pool toys, rubber air nozzle for outdoor mattresses, and finally a vacuum nozzle for deflating. The Tropo runs off of 4-”AA” batteries. Once I became a dad for the first time I realized that not only did time go out the window, but so does space. Vacuum seal bags are one of life’s greatest treasures when you save baby clothes and without a proper vacuum attachment or a vacuum if you are in a hotel, you will be out of luck.
The Tropo is a great product to buy two of. Since they are currently being sold through an IndieGoGo campaign prices may eventually differ, but are currently being sold for $19 plus shipping for one or $30 for 2. For $25 plus shipping you can grab a Tropo as well as snag one of their vacuum seal Flex Bag’s, but really you are going to want to buy more vacuum seal bags so I would personally run over to Amazon.com and pick up a bulk pack. Once you start vacuum sealing stuff it is hard to stop. It’s even a great way to store photos oddly enough.
I typically review all sorts of production and post-production equipment such as workstation computers, cameras, microphones, and other computer peripherals. The one thing with computer equipment is that you always need to use canned air to blow the dust out. For less than the price of canned air you can stock your Tropo with plenty of “AA” batteries and do more than just blow dust out of your computers.
Technically, the Tropo boasts minimal dimensions at just under 2.5” x 2.5” x 2.1”, 3.53 oz, 15W of power, a flow rate of 300 L/min, and pressure of 2000Pa. It weighs less than half the weight of an iPhone X can blow up about 12 swimming rings, 8 single person air mattresses, or 3 inflatable beds on one set of “AA” batteries. I inflated a few standard sized beach balls, each took around 1 minute and 45 seconds to inflate. So while the convenience of size is a plus for the Tropo, speed is not its strong suite. I imagine an air mattress will take around 20–30 minutes.
Physically, the Tropo looks good. It doesn’t look like the alien-shaped pumps that typical air pumps look like. The Tropo comes in 4 color options: blue, grey, pink, and green. The colors are subtle and muted, not overly saturated. The green Tropo units I received were more of an Easter green if that makes sense. It also has one switch: on or off. I love the simplicity of the Tropo air pump, with a simple cover for the 4 “AA” batteries and one on and off switch you can be inflating or deflating anything in seconds.
In the end, the Tropo air pump really is one of the best looking air pumps I have seen. I’m always turned off to products like air pumps because they look out of this world, almost like you took a sea shell and added a motor. They are almost impossible to store themselves, not to mention their accessories. The Tropo can be left out on the counter and will definitely start a conversation, it can also be put away in its drawstring bag along with its accessories. If I had a wish list for the Tropo I would love for them to add the option of a rechargeable battery along with a USB-C port for fast charging, a digital readout of how much power is left on the Tropo at any given time, and maybe devise a better way to store the nozzles. Maybe figuring out a way to have them store inside of each other like nesting dolls or another compartment near the batteries so that the entire Tropo world is contained in one box. Knowing me I will keep the nozzle I use the most and probably forget the other ones until I need them. But other than that, $19 for such a small air pump and deflator is a steal, even more of a steal if you buy two for $30.
Check out the Tropo IndieGoGo campaign for all the details, videos, GIFs, and pictures of this incredibly small and effective air pump: http://bit.ly/2OoeNDr.
