Satechi Vegan-Leather Passport Cover Review

Combining two pieces of travel gear is a good way to catch our attention. On paper, this is a better way to be efficient since “one” is easier to track than “two” when traveling. However, just slapping together two items can produce something as silly as a solar-powered flashlight or as handy as a spork. The question is, where along that loosely defined spectrum does the Satechi Vegan-Leather Passport Cover land?

On the surface, it’s a passport wallet with room for cards, boarding passes, and a passport. Satechi takes it a step further by integrating a smart tracker so that you don’t have to go out and buy a separate one. Does it work? More importantly, how functional is this passport wallet as a whole? Let’s find out.

The Rundown

For materials, Satechi uses vegan leather to give this wallet a premium vibe. For the most part, it works, and the entire wallet is pretty well-made and solid. The edges are stitched to complete the look and reinforce the area most likely to fray in the future. On that note, a couple of weeks of testing hasn’t produced any noticeable creases or wrinkling, even along the wallet’s spine. That said, we expect patina to develop over time.

If there’s anything we’re not digging about this wallet’s looks, it’s the logo. We’re not saying Satechi’s logo is ugly or anything to that effect; we’re just not quite happy with how shallow it’s debossed in the middle. Fortunately, it’s just an aesthetic detail that won’t have a meaningful difference in the wallet’s functionality.

Other than that, it’s a pretty simple wallet in terms of design. Inside are four card slots adjacent to a large slip area for your boarding passes and tickets. On the opposite side is the main slot for your passport. There are no zippered pockets for small items like coins or SIM cards, so you’ll have to keep those in a separate pouch or smaller wallet.

A note about the card slots: they’re quite tight. Passport wallets usually have card slots with some stretch, letting you put two or even three cards comfortably; this is not the case here. You might get away with doubling up on transit cards since they’re usually thin. However, you’re pretty much stuck with a four-card capacity if you’re looking to fit thick PVC cards (the type credit cards usually are).

Apart from that, this wallet’s main draw is its built-in smart tracker feature. This works pretty much like any smart tracker that’s compatible with Apple’s Find My network. To get started, you simply press the power button inside near the spine until the white LED lights up, indicating that the tracker is turned on. From there, you go into your iPhone’s Find My app to add it. It should turn up automatically, as it did for us. If all fails, don’t worry; it comes with a quick start guide to run you through the entire process.

For the uninitiated, third-party smart trackers with Find My compatibility work by being able to ping nearby iPhones to broadcast their location. This lets you know its general location (think room level), similar to how AirTags work. But unlike AirTags which can be precisely located (as in your iPhone can point you where exactly it is) using Apple’s Precision Finding feature, third-party smart trackers usually rely on audio queues to ping their exact location.

In this wallet’s specific case, Satechi equipped it with an 80-90dB speaker. It’s pretty loud, much louder than the beeps AirTags make. And since this speaker is built into the wallet rather than sandwiched between its contents, it doesn’t get muffled as badly as, say, a Tile tracker.

The connection range is quite far, too, at 32-64 feet indoors and 64-160 feet outdoors. That’s plenty if you’re trying to help airport personnel locate it among lost and found items, but you’re still realistically relying on the Find My network until you get in the same building before that.

The smart tracker is also rechargeable since it has a 210 mAh battery inside. It exclusively charges wirelessly, though, so you will either need a wireless charger or to use reverse wireless charging, which some iPhones support. Fortunately, wireless charging compatibility isn’t too picky since it can charge off Qi, Qi2, or MagSafe chargers—pretty much the entire gamut of wireless charging standards you’ll come across on your travels.

You don’t have to worry about frequently charging this wallet, though. A single charge lasted us over two weeks, which is enough for most trips we take. Plus, in cases where you absolutely know that you won’t lose this wallet (say, it’s at home or in your hotel room), you can also turn the tracker off to save on battery. In other words, charging and powering it on can be done just before your trip, but you can simply leave it off otherwise.

Packability

Packability isn’t this wallet’s strong suit, as it is quite wide and stiff once it’s all packed out. If it’s roomy enough, it’ll still fit in your pants’ back pocket. However, it’s definitely in that size range where we’d be most comfortable storing it in a sling rather than stubbornly clutching it everywhere we go.

We’d be fine with a chunker of a passport wallet, though. However, the real issue is that, for its size, this wallet doesn’t offer that much capacity. Four cards, a passport, some tickets, and maybe some cash isn’t very much, especially compared to other passport wallets. The question is, does the built-in smart tracker feature make up the difference?

Quick Comparison

A close size comparison would be the Bellroy Passport Cover. It has a different layout, with two inward-facing card slots, a space for your tickets, plus the obligatory passport slot. The difference is those two card slots can accommodate up to six cards. Even if two of that six-card capacity gets taken up by a card-shaped smart tracker, it still holds more cards than the Satechi Vegan-Leather Passport Cover.

Moreover, its inward-facing slots and magnetic closure are more secure, which makes it feel more reassuring to carry around. Needing a separate smart tracker is a con, but it’s also a pro if you already have one, like the Ekster Finder Card, with similar functionality to Satechi’s built-in tracker, including rechargeability and a speaker.