Apple’s MagSafe, which returned on the iPhone 12 in 2020, turned the back of the phone into prime real estate. Wallets stuck on first, then grips, battery packs, and tripods (we rounded up the early MagSafe accessory wave in 2021), with Qi2 later pulling Android into the same magnetic party. The next resident, apparently, is a tiny air conditioner. Gaming phones and cooling fans have been dating for years, but those clip-ons were bulky and held on by spring clamps. A magnet-mounted cooler that sits flat like a card wallet is a more civilized take, and OnePlus is about to launch one.
The OnePlus Ice Card Mini follows the 68-gram Magnetic Ice Cooling Clip, which launched in March at 179 yuan (about $26) in China. The new one weighs about 1.8 ounces (50 grams) and measures 2.8 by 2.1 inches (70mm by 53.4mm), a footprint roughly 30% smaller, at 0.38 inches (9.7mm) thick. A thermoelectric cooling chip and an air-cooling system do the work, powered straight from the phone’s USB-C port. It debuts alongside the OnePlus 16 on October 12 at 7pm local time, and Oppo’s China store already lists it. Pricing and US availability have not been announced.
A mini-fridge chip and a tiny fan, squeezed into 0.38 inches
Thermoelectric (Peltier) coolers shuttle heat from one face of a small ceramic sandwich to the other whenever current runs through them. That leaves the hot side as the problem, so the Mini pairs its TEC chip with an air-cooling system that puts cold air where the phone runs hottest. The body mixes polycarbonate and aluminum alloy, measures 0.38 inches (9.7mm) thick, and bulges to 0.48 inches (12.3mm) around the air intake. Two settings sit at about 25dB and 35dB, closer to a whisper than a hair dryer. About 10 newtons of magnetic force holds it on.
We covered the Ice Speed Freezemat, a concept MagSafe charger that borrowed its cooling trick from the way the body sweats. The SHARGE Icemag then brought active cooling to the MagSafe power bank, and LISEN’s stand later tucked a fan into a desk object. The Mini strips the idea down to one job in a card-shaped body that draws at most 3.5W (5V at 0.7A) over USB-C. OnePlus’s earlier 27W and 40W coolers for China were far hungrier. That puts the Mini in the pocket-and-forget camp instead of the gaming-rig one, and I like that call.
No RGB, one status light, and a plate for phones without magnets
OnePlus’s 27W Ice Point clip from 2025 leaned on dual-color lighting for a gamer look. The Mini arrives in a single Silver Wing gray, with one status light that glows blue or green for the active mode and flashes red to flag a fault. That reads like a tool rather than a trophy, which suits a card-sized accessory you might actually leave in a bag. Nobody needs RGB on something that lives in a jacket pocket. The result is closer to a router’s blinking LED than a gaming rig’s light show.
A magnetic plate in the box extends the trick to Android phones and iPhones without built-in magnets. OnePlus and OPPO phones also get a pairing with the ColorOS X high-performance mode, so the home team gets a software handshake. Power can come from the phone, a power bank, or a wall adapter, so there is no proprietary port to hunt for. That plain USB-C approach suits a household of mixed phones. The pairing is the part I most want to see in action, since a cooler that talks to the phone beats a fan on a magnet.
Eight hours off a power bank turns a gaming gadget into travel gear
OnePlus says a 10,000mAh power bank can keep the Mini running for up to eight hours on high, which covers a long flight or a very committed gaming marathon. That detail turns the cooler into a field accessory, one that lives in a bag next to the power bank most of us already own. The math is believable, since 3.5W for eight hours is about 28Wh, and a 10,000mAh bank holds roughly 37Wh at nominal voltage. Add conversion losses and the claim lands right where physics says it should. Not bad for a gadget weighing 1.8 ounces.
Phones keep getting thinner and more powerful, and the thermal answer keeps shifting to a second object clinging to the back. OnePlus alone has announced at least four coolers in about eighteen months, from the 27W Ice Point to this 50-gram Mini. That cadence says the company sees cooling as a real accessory category rather than a gimmick. I would not be surprised if other brands copy the card-sized format. Cooling accessories could become the next thing everyone shrugs at until their navigation app turns the phone into a hand warmer.
