PowerClip

After circulating our thoughts on where to go with the design iterations, we have come to a more realistic place. Putting in a light, as sketched out a few weeks ago may not at all be the best thing to do. It will add cost to production, weight to piece, and likely something else that can malfunction. Additionally, if there is one thing first responders will have, it would be flashlight! So why double up?

We will stick with our circuit design for indication of power levels. This seems the most important thing at moment. 

It has been long coming and long discussed but we have settled on a design innovation that will go into discussion/effect immediately.  Knowing that we are focused clearly on the first responder/disaster market, we have chosen to go for a design iteration that will lower one barrier for a potential user. To use our clip, one will need to remove a car battery from a vehicle. But what if the battery isn't worth removing? what if it is about to die?  We have chosen to iterate on a feature that will tell the user, immediately if the battery in question is worth removing. A circuit that will send an indication that the power source is in good condition....a set of LED lights that will tell the user this battery is good to go - green (has a good amount of power left to be used) or not worth it - red (about to die). Another possible consideration, do we add a light so that the device itself can light up a small area?   Some thumbnails of our thoughts  --- where do we go with it? 

We were thrilled to get the news this past week, that UNICEF - one of our consulting partners, has given us he great news that they would like to give us a grant to develop the PowerClip as a product that they might deploy into the field. This news, has given us a clearer and tighter focus on how to focus our business objectives for the next 2 years.  We have shared the news with our mentor, David Armour, and spent a lengthy afternoon working session having a long and honest conversation about what design choices we should make, and would we throw out based on the reality of our first client.

After presenting at CE week and getting feedback from the judges it was clear that our hunch was right.

All the judges had similar feedback. They felt the product was well designed and the approach to attaching electrodes to the car battery was novel.

However, they agreed that this product was not well suited for the automotive market as it is still more convenient to use the car lighter if you are going to be near your car.

With all this feedback we were excited to go back to the concept of modular power, and how we could provide this in novel ways to really help people in times of difficulty.

Now that we are clear about this, a lot of time has been spent doing research on how we can improve the product to be really well suited for the emergency response market.

We reached out to people we know who work for/with organisations that work in these situations to see what the felt was necessary to make the product more effective.

After speaking to some a few trends began to emerge of what the next design prototype could include :

On board battery : One of the options we're exploring is the feasibility of having a battery on board the device. This battery could be charged by the car battery when connected and could provide some power once charged and disconnected from the car battery. Having an onboard battery would make the device truly modular but there are a few challenges. The battery would need to have sufficient capacity to provide power for a significant period of time and charge or power quite a few devices..  Also, it would need to have a small form factor and be cheap.  Not the easiest constraints to work with but we're currently investigating this. At the moment it seems Li-ion batteries might be our best bet.

Battery charge LED : Incorporate a charge meter to indicate the current level of charge available from the car battery.  As Cat Graham one of the emergency responders we've spoken to says " I would hate to pull a battery during disaster and lug it somewhere safe only to find it doesn’t have a charge"  This is an easier one to implement.   We've designed and our currently testing a circuit that does this. 

LED torch:  Add an LED torch that can provide light. Again, simple feature but very useful in emergency situations. 

Power things at different voltages: This is a technically challenging feature. Ideally we would be able to provide power to devices that aren't powered by USB. This can be easily implemented by using different step down voltages to get the commonly used levels i.e 5V, 9V, 12V but it will be important to make sure the loss in conversion is minimised during this process because it is essential that the power extracted be as efficient as possible. We would also provice a kit of converters that confer the USB port casing to others that are seen in commonly used appliances. Something like this 

Ramping up to Consumer Electronics week has be a very useful and grueling experience. We have been doing a few marathon sessions with our mentor David Armour from Siemens Corporation, and trying to circle in on really what is the best market for us to focus on.

Through our conversations and research it is apparent that the automotive market really might not be the best one for us. One thing we do know, is that it is important for us to attract an investor, or a manufacturing partner, and to do that competitive pricing will be important. We are not sure, that given our design, that we can attract the number necessary to show significant competitive capacity.

So, we are back to our foundational purpose, this device is something that would be used in emergency situations. David introduced the GSA into our thinking, they manage a sizeable fleet that could turn any government or military issued vehicle and driver into a source of disaster relief. Our presentation for  Consumer Electronics Week  focused in on what we think are 3 big consumer areas within Disaster relief:

The classes for Incubate NYC, have been extremely helpful, we are now in week 3 and already am starting to think about the correct market fit for this product. This week, interviewed 6 potential buyers, and here are some feedback highlights:

Kim (Florida resident-hurricane zone): Kim is a Florida Resident who has a home in Central Florida and on Amela Island. She is always concerned about hurricane season for that area.  She has a hurricane "ready" kit. Some of which she gets from the city, along with a list of recommended items. She would love to know how to rely on her car battery in an emergency, but doesn't think she could get it out of the car easily

Daley (Farmers market seller: Lavender): Vendor currently uses a camo pro-pack for her stand. Since she uses her phone for credit card transactions, the phone is always running low on power. The Camo pack  chargers her phone, and also her car. She likes have 2 things in one.The pack is convenient because it is portable. PClip is only portable to get to the destination. A car battery is far less portable. This would not be a great target customer for us.

Christine Thompson (Relief worker for Humanity Road) Christine is an emergency relief worker who is familiar with PowerClip and wanted to know if there is the chance for a regular 110 outlet for the device or just USB?  A car battery will support small devices that have 110 outlet.  In their work they operated a couple of printers on it she thought it looked easy to use too – no ugly clamps.

Given that there are so many possible applications for the PowerClip, the big question that we have always asked ourselves is which market to focus on. So, over this period we hunkered down and started the real research into which direction to take:

1. Disaster Relief

The product came out of a class on designing for the developing world and was produced in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Thus, the initial focus has always been on the disaster relief market. We have been fortunate to have very close contact with the folks at FEMA and UNICEF, who have opened a lot of doors for us. We have found out a lot about how disaster relief operates and the types of bottlenecks and challenges that they face. We have spoken to professionals in this domain and possible future users. 

2. Automotive Accessories

As we started to demo the unit, there was obvious interest from an automotive accessories point of view. We started to get excited about re-designing the Jumper Cable -- which struck us as something that has not had a redesign in its whole history!

So between these two markets, we asked ourselves:

1. How big the market actually is?

2. What do we need in order to get a product into this market?

3. What partnerships do we already have?

4. What partnerships do we need to secure?

5. Who are our competitors in both these markets?

6. Is there existing protected IP in these markets?