belt

The inventor of the widely successful Scrub Daddy (from Shark Tank) is at it again. This time Scrub Daddy’s Aaron Krause has partnered with Piers Ridyard (of Nifty) to solve the nagging issue of portable devices running out of power. Together the two men have formed a new company, Ion Tech Wear, to bring to market a leather belt with an integrated battery. The Ion Belt promises to discreetly provide 3,000mAh of power via a hidden 2.1A, fast charging USB port. The belt, which is only available in black, is flexible and features slim battery packs dispersed along its length. On one end, the front buckle houses an integrated USB pin for recharging the belt. On the other end, the tail of the belt hides a slim USB port to plug in a device’s charging cable. Since it is USB based, the Ion Belt doesn’t care what you are charging; it can top off your phone, tablet, camera, or even a GoPro. Just behind the front belt loop is a (rather unsightly) power button and a set of battery indicator lights. These are the only visually techie aspects of the belt and, unfortunately, they stick out like a sore thumb. The Ion Belt is currently on Kickstarter for $89 with an expected June 2016 launch.

Interestingly, this is not Ridyard’s first attempt at a belt with an integrated battery. Last year he released the XOO Belt through a partnership with British designer Casely-Hayford. The belt was sold via Indiegogo and featured a fully flexible 2,100mAh integrated battery that ran the length of the belt. Instead of a traditional buckle design to hold the belt in place, the XOO Belt used a ratchet based system with an oversized front buckle housing all of the electronics. In all honestly, we are not sure what the motivation is for Ridyard to tackle this problem again, besides achieving a product more similar in design language to a traditional belt. The original design looks perfectly decent to us, and in some ways might be superior to the new Ion Belt. That said, it doesn’t seem to be for sale any longer – and that alone might be the motivation behind the new Ion Belt. So, if you are thinking that your belt just isn’t doing enough for you, you once again have a change to fix that thanks to the Ion Belt.