Forming an opinion 4A

I see an unmet need for devices that are battery powered but give vague to no indication as to how much power is left. For example, the headphones that I use when I work out have a light that flashes orange when the battery reaches 20% of maximum power and continues to flash the same color all the way until the batteries die. The battery life for my headphones is very good, so 20% power is enough for one workout. I, on several occasions, have thought that I had 20% of power left in my batteries only to find out that the real number was far less than that. A device that can plug into a USB port or that can hold batteries and display the amount of power left would be useful for anyone who has equipment ranging from headphones to power drills to anything else that is battery powered but does not have a way of displaying the accurate amount of power left in the battery. This is a need that has a simple solution yet, for far too long, has had nothing done to solve it.

            The prototypical customer would be anyone that regularly uses a battery powered device. Someone that does not want to risk their device shutting down on them while they’re in the middle of an activity. In my interviews, I asked someone who works out for extended periods of time (1:30 – 2:30 hours), someone who is working on his house and finds a power drill necessary, and a mother who uses a sound activated baby monitor daily.

            The first person that I interviewed said that a portable device similar to what I described would be very useful. On multiple occasions, he has had the same problems as me. He said that his headphones tell him exactly how much power is left when he turns them on. However, he gets very annoyed because, when the battery is low, he has to turn his headphones on and off several times during a workout to see how much power is left. He said this need first occurred when he started using Bluetooth headphones. He said that he is not satisfied with his current solution and that he would welcome a small device that would indicate the exact power.

            The second person that I interviewed said that he would be very happy to find a small device that he can plug in his power drill and quickly figure out how much battery is left. He gave several examples pertaining to when he was doing work and his battery quit at a very inconvenient time. He said that his problem does not happen often but when it does, it is very annoying. Currently, his only way to solve this is by taking from the task that requires a power drill and allow the battery to recharge. He said that this is very inefficient and that a device that could tell him how much power is left would help him to decide whether to start a project and thus, would be very beneficial.

            The last person I interviewed uses her battery powered baby monitor daily. The monitor is almost necessary because it alerts her when her baby wakes up from a nap. She said that she has had many occasions when the monitor has ran out of power and caused her baby to cry for an extended period of time before she walked within earshot of the cry. She said that a device that accurately displayed how much power is left in her baby monitor would be very beneficial to her. She is very displeased because she currently has no way of knowing if the monitor has enough of a charge to last through the baby’s nap.

Reflection: I learned that my solution could be applicable in many different areas and that it is also something that many people have not given much thought to. Two of the people that I interviewed said that prior to me asking, they had never thought of a device so simple that could assist them so much. I was very happy with my interviews and the positive reception of my idea.

            

Summary: I continue to believe that there is a great opportunity with my idea. I believe that there could be a large market if the product could be produced and sold for a reasonable price and designed to be adaptable to work with many different devices. One issue with the idea is that a patent would likely be hard to obtain because this is such a simple idea. I believe that the customer feedback was very important. Their emphasis on the need for the device to be small and portable could be crucial to the success of the product. I believe that to bring this product to fruition, much more modification and customer feedback would be needed.