As I prepare for the trip to Digital Hollywood, the new IOS 7 update for iPhone is available. I don’t want to mess with my phone until I return home. Don’t fix what isn’t broken, right? But buzz about issues associated with the update and battery life remind me of a reoccurring problem. I need my iPhone 5 from dawn to dusk and possibly into the night while I’m in sunny, southern California. How can I avoid looking like a battery failing bumpkin in front of Hollywood’s finest?

I LOVE the Mophie Juice Pack Helium!

“Do you have something that is able to extend battery life without plugging into electrical?” I ask the Apple rep. “Sure do,” he answers. He walks me to the wall where multiple color choices of the Mophie Juice Pack Helium for iPhone 5, essentially a case that contains a battery, hang. The allure of focusing on conference sessions instead of wall outlets is so appealing I hardly notice the price of $79.95 plus tax.

The most difficult decision of the purchase is color. The Apple rep likes blue, but there’s so much blue in my life my phone could disappear like a hunter wearing camouflage in the Arkansas deer woods during hunting season.

I choose the hot pink case. After he slides my credit card through his hand-held device, he extracts the cover, the charging cord and a headphone extension from the packaging. He pops my iPhone into the case, then snaps on the lower portion. The lower portion is fit with a 1500 mAh Battery at 3.7 V nominal battery for over 5 watt-hours of capacity, a place to insert the charge plug, and a pace to plug in the headset extender. Four LED lights on the back indicate the case’s battery charge level.

When do you turn on the helium? The manufacturer suggests turning it on with the button right of the LED lights when the iPhone 5 battery hits 20%. Turn the charge off when the iPhone battery reads about 80%.

While I didn’t conduct an official battery life test, I can attest that my iPhone talked me all the way from Hollywood to Marina del Rey (Siri should be called S.I.S.S. because Siri Is Soooo Smart!) all four days of the conference. After nightly charging, it lasted through each day as I checked social connections and email, took notes, and snapped pics. It talked me back home to Hollywood.

I realized what a wise choice I made when I saw one conference attendee moving in the middle of a session to be near an electrical outlet. Mophie Juice Pack Helium for iPhone 5 is worth every penny.