This toolless modular lever-action wallet is the coolest I’ve stuck to my phone.
Pull the integrated springy lever, and your cards fan out. Want a thicker or thinner wallet? Press in the right place and it comes apart without tools, letting you swap in a 3, 5, or 7-card “core” that grips your cards so they don’t fall out.
Want an ID card, work badge, elastic band for more cards, or a money clip on the end? You can change out the front or back magnetic plates for any of those. Or, change out both for ultra-thin aluminum covers if you don’t need the wallet to magnetically stick to your phone.
You can see it in action in my Today I’m Toying With video embedded in this post (also on YouTube and on Instagram if you prefer).
My favorite part is that the whole kit snaps together using a compliant mechanism — the plastic arms of the card-carrying core act like springs, pushing a little locking mechanism into the notches of each modular cover you add as you slide the parts together. Once your cards are inside, they keep the arms apart so it can’t open accidentally (unless you drop the entire wallet). It’s all very clever.
Even when I did drop the wallet (thanks for the suggestion, hugo!), it didn’t explode, typically. Usually, it just came apart slightly, though I did drop it hard on concrete one time and was able to make a small explosion: one half popped off, and two cards came out, but everything landed in a two-foot radius. The wallet has a big dent now.
There are definitely some downsides. While OhSnap advertises the Wallet 2 as “impossibly thin,” it’s only truly surprisingly sleek in its thinnest 3-card variant, without the thicker and heavier MagSafe and MagStack (which lets you snap other magnets to it) plates attached.
But the reason I’m not buying one is the price and weight. The 7-card version makes my phone feel too heavy, adding 127 grams, and while I happily made the 3-card my wallet for a few weeks, it’d cost me $61 on Kickstarter or $76 retail to get that with a double-magnet kit. OhSnap’s also charging more than I’d like ($35 for an ID cover or a money clip!) for extras.
OhSnap didn’t get me this time. But I could see giving one as a present.
