XOO Belt by Nifty: keeps pants and charge smartphone

Until someone comes up with an inexpensive battery that will last for a week, portable external batteries will not lose their relevance. But the trouble is: most of them are bulky enough to carry without a bag (after all, all the pockets are always busy), and forgetting them is easy somewhere. Nifty decided to fix this with a new belt with an XOO Belt battery, running the campaign on Indiegogo . After all, you need to have a special talent to lose your belt.

Nifty is known for its Minidrive , a tiny data store that fits in the Apple notebook card slot. During their last trip to China, co-founders Pierce Ridyard and Steve Levy discovered a new type of flat flexible battery, which has not yet been used for commercial projects. After some thought, the idea to combine the belt and the battery into one whole appeared.
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The XOO Belt prototype is similar to a regular belt, except that the buckle looks bigger than usual. It has two batteries with a total capacity of 2100 mAh: one for 1300 mAh in the belt itself, the second for 800 mAh in the buckle.


Flexible battery in prototype: buckle (left) and belt (right)

Separation means that batteries only occupy a certain part of the belt, and regardless of the length, the characteristics of the XOO Belt do not change. Agree, it would be unfair to have an advantage because of the wide bone.


XOO Belt prototype with buckle printed on 3D printer

The microUSB cable in the prototype was not very reliable, in the serial version of the belt it will be neatly attached to the back with a magnet.

Charge your smartphone is not difficult: just pull the cable and plug it into the phone. IPhone users can use the Lightning adapter. The idea of ​​XOO Belt is that the user can charge the smartphone while he is in his pocket or even during a conversation with minimal inconvenience.



The belt and the buckle are essentially two different devices, so that in the future the user will be able to replace part of the belt with a more powerful one. In Nifty they want their belt to combine style along with utility. Therefore, the startup works closely with the Casely-Hayford design house to provide a trendy look to the device. Alternative designs will appear over time.

Nifty already has a successful Kickstarter fundraising experience for the production of Minidrive. This time the startup decided to launch a campaign on Indiegogo. According to Levy, this is due to the fact that they see the US as the main market, but for a startup from England, collecting dollars in dollars has certain difficulties.

The company managed to collect most of the amount in less than 24 hours. The initial goal was to collect $ 50,000. Now you can pre-order the XOO Belt for $ 155 or donate $ 5 to help the campaign. Funds raised at Indiegogo will be spent on components and production, and Nifty plans to ship its belts to customers in July 2015.

Based on: The Next Web
Posted by: Dmitry Figol