Following Up | IV Backpack

Following Up | IV Backpack

We’ve had an incredible response for the I.V. Backpack post, with loads of awesome crew coming out of the woodwork to offer some help, thoughts and ideas. We figured we’d do a follow up post to summarise the key approaches that we think have immediate promise.

Our hope is that with the people that volunteered their time and energy, we might be able to channel it to provide a few diverse solutions to suit the multitude of people that have similar conditions…

1. Small adaptions to existing backpacks
With some simple hooks to keep the fluid bags upright, many backpacks can be modified to provide a neat enough solution (here is one such example). This means users can find a bag that fits their personality, and with a few small tweaks, get it performing well. Our hope with this area is to record some of the better ‘hacks’ for adapting bags.

So far, it seems like the best bags to start from fall into the following categories: hydration packs (nice and slim with cord management built in), laptop packs (adapting the laptop section to hold the fluid bags), kids packs (smaller for the little-uns), and wheeled bags/packs (because all the equipment can be heavy when carried for some time, so having the option of wheels seems to work really well for some people).

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2. Creating a slim bag that can work as an insert
The goal is to create a slim and semi-structured module that can hold a fluid bag, pump, and a few parts to be carried discreetly on its own, or be slipped into another bag or backpack. The tube would be gathered at the top of the module, and the whole thing would be kept compact and neat.

We really like this idea (thanks Jaise), as it allows you to chop and change your bag to suit your activity. It also leaves pocketing in your bag free for whatever other activity you are pursuing. So far some of the key inspiration for this comes from the Acronym concept and the Mattt bags.

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3. Creating a purpose designed backpack with lots of features
This one would be something more like the dream backpack that is purpose built for this role. It would achieve the goals we outlined in the brief, and provide features to really make life easier.

The main goal with all of these is to keep the fluid bags upright, and channel the tubes out through the top of the bag.

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Brandon is getting in touch with those that have already offered help in designing a pack, and we hope we can help them with ideas and feedback as it unfolds.

What do you guys think? Is this heading in the right direction? Does anyone else have thoughts or ideas that might improve these 3 directions?

Thanks so much for contributing your ideas so far, and please keep them coming. There are some really exciting solutions starting to emerge!