Boomin Belts Bluetooth Speaker Belt: A Design Success Story
About two years ago, Design Eye Q got a call from Eric Barnhart, an entrepreneur from Florida with a passion for golf.
When he and his buddies were out on the green, they often played music from their phones. When it came time to putt, they wanted to bring the music with them, but there is no convenient place to keep a phone while swinging a golf club. Eric came up with a marketable solution: why not play music from your belt? But instead of holstering your phone (because hell no) why not make the buckle itself the speaker?
Eric is a smart guy; he studied entrepreneurship at the University of South Florida, taking classes on everything from product development, business strategies, federal regulations, you name it. He knew the basics about prototyping and knew to hire a patent attorney. Heck, he’s even friends with Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank, who gave his idea two thumbs up. All he was missing was the actual product.
What he needed was a team that could create his Bluetooth belt buckle. He reached out to some trusted friends and they recommended Design Eye Q.
“Ray was super good at figuring out how to create a premium experience. He nailed that right out of the gate,” Eric explained.
Ray Mattison is the lead designer of DEQ Studio. Though he’d never designed a bluetooth speaker before, he and Tina Mattison, the studio’s president, were willing to accept the challenge. The two worked closely with Eric to create a bespoke product that any person would be excited to wear.
It wasn’t an easy task. The buckle presented a real quandary, as it needed to feel good, look good, sound good, and last at least six hours. That meant trying to fit a ton of crap -- speakers, batteries and circuit boards -- into a tiny rectangle that could then slide onto a belt.
After dissecting nearly every single bluetooth speaker under $40 in order to understand the circuitry (and Eric working hard on his end to make sure no patents were being violated), Ray got to work. The beginning stages required a bit of resourcefulness, superglue, and brute strength, but eventually a speaker was born.
The final product was always going to be made of metal, but 3D printing metal is cost prohibitive when you’re working with multiple iterations. One of the many benefits of working with a studio like DEQ is the means to print and tinker without breaking the bank. During that process, Ray decided to abandon the sliding buckle in favor of a keyhole design, which allowed for all the pieces to fit together seamlessly and eliminated some of the bulk.
The end result looks very similar to Ray’s original sketches, which is one of the marks of great design. The belts are super slick, and the buckle itself can be easily removed, clipped onto something else (think backpack, purse, etc), and it's magnetic. It comes with a customizable faceplate, too.
At the Professional Golf Association show in Orlando, Boomin Belts made a huge splash. The product placed fourth in a competition of thirty or so new products.
We asked Eric what he would want other entrepreneurs to know before they approach DEQ Studio with a product idea. “Go in with an open mind. Iterative testing means you’ll run into unforeseen challenges, but I really enjoyed being part of the collaborative process. Now my baby is being born!”
If you preorder the Boomin Belt now, expect it to arrive in April. This is something a lot of people are excited about, and DEQ Studio is grateful to have helped Eric turn his great idea into a great product.
Do you have a product you’d like us to design?
For more information about our studio, you can read our blog, check out our design process, or contact us directly.