We Try Bluesmart, a Travel Bag That Can Weigh Itself and Charge Your Gadgets
The Bluesmart prototype, in all its carry-on glory. (Alyssa Bereznak/Yahoo Tech)
If you’re inspired by a pitch video on a crowdsourcing site, you send some money. It’s not an investment; you don’t get rich if the invention becomes a hit. But you do get some memento — a T-shirt or a discounted version of the invention once it’s manufactured — and the rosy glow of knowing that you helped bring a cool idea to life.
There’s only one problem: You have no way to know if the invention was actually any good. That’s where our crowdfunding reviews come in. We test the prototype, find out how much promise it has, and help you decide if the thing is worth funding or buying.
Today’s invention: Bluesmart smart suitcase
The claim: This carry-on allows you to lock, weigh, and track your baggage, all from an iOS or Android app on your smartphone. It also doubles as a charger. Oh, and you can tote stuff around in it, too.
Price: $250
Goal: Seeking $50,000
Status: Bluesmart has already raised a whopping $931,000, with 12 days to go.
What I tested: One of Bluesmart’s five co-founders, Brian Chen, brought a prototype of Bluesmart to our New York office, where I had a chance to preview the functions and design of the app-in-progress. I also got to test out the locking, tracking, and weighing features of the case. And I put my grimy little hands all over its Made-in-China exterior and interior, which are still in the early stages of design.
What I learned: Despite the fact that Bluesmart is only a prototype, it already seemed highly functional, based on the time I spent playing around with it.
Bluesmart’s most innovative and exciting feature is its ability to weigh itself. It does this via a load sensor installed in the handle at the top of the bag. As you lift it, it measures the tension between the handle and the rest of the object, which is displayed in an app on your smartphone. In the demo, I noticed that that weight fluctuated depending on the steadiness of your grip on the suitcase handle. To get a definitive, constant weight, Chen had to calmly hold it away from his body with one arm, like a Tupperware container full of stinky food.
Either way, it delivers a ballpark weight that should prevent you from frantically rummaging through your luggage to make a weight requirement.
Then there’s the lock, located at the top of the case, which can be activated or deactivated by pressing a button on your smartphone. You get a physical key, too, in case your phone dies and you need to open your suitcase. I saw Chen test it out: He tapped a button on his phone, and the lock on the bag clicked. This didn’t actually lock the bag, however: Its locking mechanism happened to be broken that day.
Aside from that snafu, the actual process of locking the bag seemed to be functioning with the app without any trouble.
The lock, by the way, meets the Transportation Security Administration’s requirements, which means you’re allowed to check it if you wish (if you do not have a TSA-approved lock, it’ll ask you to remove it before handing it over to an airport official). If airport officials need to get in, the TSA also owns a universal key that can unlock the case. (This is how all TSA-approved locks work. Who knew?)
Co-founder Brian Chen with his Bluesmart prototype. (Alyssa Bereznak/Yahoo Tech)
Design-wise, the Bluesmart is clearly made for anyone who has the same travel routine as George Clooney in Up in the Air. In other words, it’s for businesspeople. That’s reflected in its hard, black, plastic shell, speedy wheels, and retractable aluminum handle. The case is specifically made to fit in all those dreaded metal frames that the despicable airlines use to measure the size of your carry-on and shame you into making you check your bag.
In the front of the bag, there’s a slim, zippered sleeve designated for your laptop, so you can easily extract it from your bag and slip it into the security line’s plastic bins, no problem. There’s also a similar sleeve dedicated to tablet storage. The design of the inside has yet to be finalized, and Chen and his co-founders are polling their many, many Indiegogo backers on what they’d prefer. So far it has a mesh, zipper-safe pocket the size of the case, meant to separate all your tiny belongings from your clothes. It’s a typical suitcase interior — no exciting surprises.
The TSA-approved Bluesmart lock, which you can disable and enable from your smartphone. (Alyssa Bereznak/Yahoo Tech)
Intriguingly, the suitcase also doubles as a charger. This feature has proved especially helpful to Chen, who has traveled to London, Hong Kong, Paris, New York, and San Francisco to show off his prototype; the bag’s battery lasts for one to two weeks of active use.
“It’s one of those simple things, where you don’t have to go to the airport terminal and look for an outlet,” he told Yahoo Tech. “There’s always a crowd around the charging stations, and some airports don’t even have charging stations.”
And how do you charge the Bluesmart’s battery in order to charge up your devices? In a perfect world, you would be able to power up your luggage with the same cable and wall unit you use to charge your iPhone or Android device. You would plug a cable into the top of the case and connect it with a USB-compatible wall plug.
Chen can’t make any promises that this will be included in the final version, due to licensing issues; if the inventors can’t get legal clearance, then there will be a separate cord to charge the bag.
Finally, Bluecase’s tracking feature allows you set a preferred distance of separation between you and your bag. If you exceed that distance, say 20 feet, a push notification will appear on your phone to let you know that you’ve left it behind.
When I told an acquaintance about this feature, he said, “Oh, so it’s a carry-on for idiots?” True, if you are a functioning adult human, you should be able to keep track of your bag at the airport. But traveling is stressful and overwhelming, especially when you’re rushing to make a flight in the morning, and dealing with long lines at check-in, security, and Starbucks. The GPS feature is there just in case you happen to get distracted and lose a bag that contains your laptop full of confidential company documents. And if you leave it in a taxi, its built in GPS feature can tell you where exactly it’s headed.
The bottom line: Chen said it himself: Bluesmart is meant for “business travelers, first and foremost, who are taking short trips.” And as it turns out, your typical dumb carry-on by Samsonite or Tumi can range anywhere from $100 to $450, depending on the designer and make. So I’d say this thing is actually a high-tech deal for someone who’s zipping around in planes often enough to rack up a significant number of frequent-flyer miles. If you’re that person, and looking to make your trips a little bit smoother, you should check this thing out.
If you’d like to support Bluesmart, check out its Indiegogo page here.
Follow Alyssa Bereznak on Twitter or email her.
