I have a trailer. Not showing off, it’s nothing special. But if you have one, you know how useful they can be. But a trailer is worthless without straps. They may not hold the world together, but they do a great job of holding it all down. Now if you’ve used straps, you know they are hardly a perfect product. They can be a huge pain in the neck at times, but a necessary pain in the neck. That’s why when a company called Omega Strap reached out, claiming to fix a bunch of problems with ratchet straps, I said I wouldn’t mind taking a quick look. Let’s go.
This is the Omega Strap. It’s a medium-duty 1” wide ratchet strap, with 3 unique features. These are not ground breaking technology. But their genius is in their simplicity. Let’s start with this bendy piece of metal they call the Flex Hook. Anyone who’s used tie downs have at one point, hooked up one side, walked to the other side of their trailer, only to have the hook fall off. It can be irritating. The Flex Hook is their solution. This bendable piece of heavy guage wire allows you to quickly and easily secure your hook in place. I thought this idea was silly at first, until the first time we used it. You just have to change your thought process, and get into the habit of using this little wire to secure the hook, and it’ll ruin all other tie downs for you. This tiny thing made a huge difference, and both my brother and I loved it.
Next, was the Control Knob. That’s the red knob on the side. This felt a little more superfluous. Essentially it allows you to tighten up your your strap with less ratcheting, which is, you know… fine. It also allows for controlled release of your load, which I never experienced. And last of all it works in conjunction with the last unique feature, the Attached Loop.
This is a bit of elastic cord that hangs off the side. In theory, after ratcheting your strap in place, you you’re going to excess strap flying around. So now you can wrap that excess strap around the control knob, and then use the attached loop to hold it all in place. Nice. In theory. It’s also great for wrapping all your straps neatly for storage, you know, like all of us do.
The truth is, I’m lazy. Turns out my brother is lazy too. He used the Omega straps several times to “borrow” my EGO Z6, and while he always used the control knob to wrap up the excess strap, he never wanted to take the time to wrap each one so neatly. Instead he ended up wadding up the strap, and then using the attached loop to hold the wad in place, which still worked!
But of course when he’d drop off the Z6, the straps would almost always end up in a pile, just like all of our other straps. But that feels a awful lot like a ME flaw, and not an Omega Strap flaw. If you’re not a savage like me, and you already take the time to neatly store your straps, you’ll freak’n love this loop and the control knob. It allows neat freaks to easily reach peak neatness.
So lets talk cost. These are about $10 each on their website, and they come with this really nice storage bad. I compared them to my other cheap straps, and even brought them to Home Depot to compare them to the stock they offer. Comparable size and build quality could easily be had for less. But of course, they didn’t have the convenience features of the Omega Strap. From my perspective, convenience translates to a happy life. So if I can spend $4 or $5 bucks more for a strap that will bring me convenience while getting the job done for many many years, it feels like a no-brainer. The only real test now will be to see how well these hold up over time. I’ve been using them all summer and they still look new. But we’ll see. For transparency, this wasn’t a paid video, but Omega Strap did send us free examples to try out, so thanks for that. I’ll see you all Friday for the Power Tool Week In Review.
