New closure allows camping mattress to be inflated in seconds

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1484284472/windcatcher-inflates-in-seconds-with-no-power-or-p

by prawn • 13 years ago

309 122 13 years ago

kickstarter.com

bradleysmith2• 13 years ago

There's a problem I had solved. Ver' nice.

bradleysmith2• 13 years ago

Downvoted for agreeing that this solves a problem? Not belly-aching, but that was honest input.

I was happy to see someone build this; I've hated thermarest valves since I've known them.

prawn• 13 years ago

Someone might have read your comment as "There's a problem I had already solved" rather than "There's a problem I had, solved."

cjfont• 13 years ago

Nice concept, but I'm wondering how inflating a mattress in this manner will allow you to achieve the pressure needed to support your weight.

brianjolney• 13 years ago

you'd be surprised how little you need to inflate these types of things to be comfortable. Often times you only fill it 60% or so so it has some give when you lay on it.

Nursie• 13 years ago

Yeah, I was wondering the same. We have some nice fluff about air pressure and moving large volumes of air, but no indication of how any sort of pressure is achieved.

StavrosK• 13 years ago

It looks like you inflate as much as you can, and then you roll the little inflation tab in to compress the air and achieve pressure.

drharris2• 13 years ago

By laying on it, you're compressing what's in there, and it pushes back on you. There's no need to ever inflate a mattress like a bicycle tire.

eli• 13 years ago

My back hurts just thinking about sleeping on an underinflated mattress. More power to you if it works for you.

rplnt• 13 years ago

You still need to achieve some pressure. I find it really unconvincing they didn't show it in use in the video (in one cut).

edit: They will provide proper video apparently http://www.reddit.com/r/shutupandtakemymoney/comments/1eqcbo...

xanadohnt2• 13 years ago

This is not a comment from a hiker. You do need to pressurize sleeping pads. If you're older than 25, you do, trust me.

jonahx2• 13 years ago

I love software innovation, but somehow it always impresses me more to see real world mechanical innovation like this, true old-school inventor entrepreneurship. Seems like a legitimately great idea.

smtddr• 13 years ago

It should impress you more!

For all the talk of "changing the world" that comes in the software start-up scene, it's the physical inventions[1] that have more obvious & immediate impact on the world - and by "world", I really mean developing countries instead of our first-world problems(annoyances really). These fast-inflating/deflating mattresses would be very helpful in those countries.

1. http://vimeo.com/53588182

jamii2• 13 years ago

I don't really see the appeal for mattresses. I have a very comfy foam/air mattress just about fits in my pocket and inflates faster than their demo.

My tent, on the other hand, has an inflatable beam that takes a good minute to blow up...

smackfu• 13 years ago

How big is your pocket????

aetimmes• 13 years ago

What brand of air mattress do you have, if you don't mind my asking?

bazzargh3• 13 years ago

The Klymit Inertia X-Frame is like what he described. A Balloonbed is even smaller, but takes a fair bit longer to inflate.

jamii2• 13 years ago

I think it's this one - http://www.multimat.uk.com/store/products/superlite-compact-...

Its pretty easy to get it down to about 25x10x3cm. I travelled with it for three years without any punctures.

This is the tent - http://www.backcountry.com/nemo-equipment-inc.-moto-1p-super...

3rd3• 13 years ago

So how does this work?

crb• 13 years ago

Scroll down the Kickstarter page for a very readable explanation:

"The secret behind the Windcatcher's amazing speed of inflation is its ability to leverage the awesome properties of air. Simply put, the two most important properties are:

- Fast moving air has lower air pressure than slow moving air

- Air with higher pressure will be drawn to areas of lower pressure

When you blow into the Windcatcher you create a stream of fast moving, low pressure air. Because it has a higher air pressure, the surrounding air is sucked into the low pressure air stream. As a result, the air entering the Windcatcher is at least 10 to 15 times greater than the air you expelled from your lungs."

unwind• 13 years ago

I guess the final sentence is missing a "volume of", i.e. it should be something like "As a result, *the volume of air entering the Windcatcher [...]", right? I double-checked and this error is on the Kickstarter page, it's not your quote.

Just mentioning it in case the project owners drop by. Cool project, by the way!

aaronsnoswell• 13 years ago

In one of my first year physics course they showed a great demo based on this principle. A student was challenged to inflate a huge bag as much as possible. They always did miserably, only filling the bag to about 1/8th. The lecturer then used this technique to fill the entire bag in one hit. A great demo that I'll never forget.

pge• 13 years ago

This is a great demo - it's often done at kids' science museums as well, if they have an instructional area. Particularly with kids' tiny lungs, they can only fill a fraction of the bag, then when they do it this way, they fill a bag bigger than themselves. It's definitely memorable.

adaml_6232• 13 years ago

These guys have taken the same physical phenomena used in the newish Dyson fans and hand dryers and found a radically different way to use it.

This looks as simple as a paper clip and I think in years to come many people will wonder why they didn't think of it first. True genius

EDIT: I stand corrected by HN. There are number of bags that use similar techniques and apparently airplane evacuation slides inflate using that physical phenomena as well.

jonahx2• 13 years ago

What exactly is the phenomenon they're taking advantage of?

peterwwillis3• 13 years ago

Technically the pressure gradient force, but also gravity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure-gradient_force

"A difference in pressure across a surface then implies a difference in force, which can result in an acceleration" [..] "The resulting force is always directed from the region of higher-pressure to the region of lower-pressure"

The lower pressure is the fast-moving hot wind from your mouth. The higher pressure is all the air around it. So it's like a reverse vacuum. Kinda.

UnoriginalGuy2• 13 years ago

Speaking of which, I wonder if they'll need to deal with patents. From what I understand Dyson has that technology wrapped up tight.

PS - Dyson's fans are also terrible. Great concept, poorly executed. They wanted them to be sleek, so they used tiny motors which are LOUD making Dyson's Air Multiplier far louder than other fans WITH blades.

PPS - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVbEE0Qe4BQ

kaolinite• 13 years ago

I'm planning to buy a Dyson Air Multiplier heater/fan very soon so this comment intrigued me. I'll be sure to go to a store to check them out in advance. I didn't really like the video you linked as I find it to be a bit of a red flag when someone calls something "overpriced", especially when they go on to be very negative about it - it almost feels like jealousy.

Still, I'll look into it before I buy. I don't suppose you know of any other fans/heaters that you would recommend?

robomartin2• 13 years ago

I haven't (and will not) invest any time doing the numbers but, a quick think about the Dyson fans leads me to conclude the whole thing is a big marketing scam. Kudos for pulling it off, but the thing ain't magic.

For starters, it has blades. It definitely has blades. They are simply concealed. It's like saying my computer has no fans when the fans are not visible from the outside. Nonsense.

Second, it takes a certain amount of power to accelerate a mass of air to a given speed. That does not change magically because the thing has a Dyson sticker on it. The most efficient way to accelerate a mass of air is, wait for it, a properly designed fan. It am pretty certain the Dyson contraption is actually much less efficient than a properly designed plain fan which produces the same airflow. It absolutely could not be more efficient, no way. Nowhere in conventional physics do you get more --of anything-- than you are entitled to.

In fact, the larger the fan the more efficiently it can accelerate a mass of air. Because the Dyson fans are constrained by the small space of the base they have to use screaming little fans to push against the back-pressure produced by the path the air has to follow.

Maybe not as sexy, but a really well designed fan with optimized airfoils and balanced rotor IS magical in the sense that it can be so much better than the stamped metal contraptions one usually finds at the store. I have seen fans like that come-up here and there but they are rare.

I did a project many years ago where we had to design and optimize an efficient cooling system for a 1500 Watt LED array. We ultimately ended-up going with a hybrid fluid/air system. However, for the bulk of the project we tried to make an air-only approach work because it was deemed simpler and easier to manufacture. I learned a lot from running tons and tons of FEA fluid and thermal simulations as making a number of prototypes. There is no free lunch (AKA: Conservation of Energy).

nodata• 13 years ago

What's the name of the phenomena?

ot: I find Dyson's bladeless fans way too weak (and loud)

Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venturi_effect

mikeash• 13 years ago

It's briefly mentioned in the video: entrainment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrainment_(hydrodynamics)

sliverstorm• 13 years ago

Not Venturi. Venturi is when an airflow in a constricted space is further constricted.

amvp• 13 years ago

Example of the the baader-meinhof phenomenon? I learnt about this it a few days ago, as its the same phenomena used by Brain Brushwood in this weeks scam school - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at0xRBacJF8 where he attributes it to the 'bernoulli effect'.

adaml_6232• 13 years ago

I don't think you mean Baader-meinhof ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baader-Meinhof_(disambiguation) )

They do mention the bernoulli effect in the Kickstarter video

devmach2• 13 years ago

Ok, i'll play devil's advocate : Windcatcher works as same principle as evacuation slides on planes and even if it's about physics i think it's somehow ( design ? ) patented.

So, what about patents ? Is there any patent that product violate and may cause later any problem ?

Zikes2• 13 years ago

I'm willing to bet they began the process of patenting the design prior to putting videos of it on the internet.

corresation• 13 years ago

Even if they did, applying for a patent doesn't indicate that you have a valid patent, nor does it provide any protection whatsoever for patents that came before.

aredington• 13 years ago

Say it's the exact same mechanism as evacuation slides.

Patents in the U.S. since 1995 have had a term of 20 years, prior to 1995 it was a term of 17 years.

The slides were initially patented in 1956. In 1956 the U.S. patent term was 17 years; those patents expired in 1973.

But, let's suppose some advances were made and the specific valving mechanism was patented later. It would have had to have been invented and patented some time after 1995 to still be covered by a patent.

If it were patented any earlier, its term will have expired and the idea is now in the public domain, which means anyone can use the idea without paying anything.

devmach2• 13 years ago

Thanks for the clarification.

They should really add some info about patents and prior art on kickstarter page. And i hope , just to be sure , they applied for a patent their design.

jwr• 13 years ago

It always makes me sad when a new product arrives and people start worrying about patents. I can't believe there are people who still believe that patents encourage innovation.

joonix• 13 years ago

Evacuation slides use pressurized gas canisters to inflate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuation_slide

deckar01• 13 years ago

It seemed like he had to blow pretty hard.

yitchelle• 13 years ago

It is interesting as what other application this would have?

If I could replace my mouth (the source of the wind) with an electric fan, what else can I do with this?

Kluny• 13 years ago

Bouncy castle!

JulianMorrison• 13 years ago

Or with actual wind. Scale it up, use it for rapid construction of emergency housing? An inflatable former can be covered with concrete quickly and then deflated.

gnosis• 13 years ago

How large would it need to be scaled in order to generate useful amounts of power by sticking a wind turbine on it?

Zmetta• 13 years ago

The valve is based on the Venturi effect. The fluid flow through a constriction lowers the pressure at the constriction point. An inlet at the low pressure point will allow addition fluid at atmospheric pressure to enter through the inlet in the constriction thus adding to the total fluid through the outlet. Pretty clever use of fluid dynamics!

notdrunkatall4• 13 years ago

This is what I was looking for, thanks.

tlrobinson2• 13 years ago

Avalanche airbags use the same principle to inflate larger than the volume of compressed air in their canisters.

rusbra• 13 years ago

Pretty awesome idea... I'd probably use it for my guest when they sleep over since i never go camping!

bazzargh3• 13 years ago

The stuff about inflating with your mouth is a bit of a straw man. If you inflate say a Thermarest NeoAir or a Packraft you're more likely to use something like an Instaflator now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJLVYfg88TE

(Thermarest have their own variant on the bag inflator for the neoair - but the principle's the same)

nmcfarl• 13 years ago

The backpacking mattresses are still inflated by mouth - I’m certainly not carrying another 2 oz on my back for a week just to save a minute on inflating. And neither are any of the folk I go into the backcountry with.

But this mattress is not aimed at us either - it weighs in at 24 oz with an R value of 1!

So perhaps the Thermarests owned by people who’d buy this are currently being inflated by Instaflators...

notdrunkatall4• 13 years ago

>it weights in at 24oz with an R value of 1!

Ouch!

andrewem• 13 years ago

Do you have a good source for the state of the art in backpacking mattresses? I last bought one back in the 1990s, and I guess now I'm interested to see a comparison table of maybe weight, R-value, and price for reasonable choices.

bazzargh3• 13 years ago

I did say 'like' an Instaflater - it's the mechanism I meant. The thermarest pump sack doubles as a stuff sack, so it's not dead weight like the Instaflater.

I'm a bike tourer, not a backpacker, so I tend to shave weight when I can drop a pound not an ounce - carrying that isn't a big deal.

But yeah, 24oz and R 1 is pretty bad.

frenchy• 13 years ago

I don't bother with anything but the mouth inflator for my NeoAir. It takes me a total of 15 seconds max. I'm not quite sure what all the fuss is about.

alexvr• 13 years ago

I hope they can patent this just so they're not ripped off by big generic companies. It's a great idea.

baudehlo4• 13 years ago

I'm afraid there's already a matress that does this. It's from exped, I own one and it's awesome, and better implemented than this because you're only inflating a small pump sack, and can use it to build pressure in the mattress.

Here's a video: http://www.exped.com/exped/web/exped_homepage_na.nsf/b43popu...

TylerE• 13 years ago

That looks much slower, more complicated, and more expensive.

baudehlo4• 13 years ago

It is more expensive but only because it has an R value of 8.0 (the Kickstarter one has an R value of 1.0, which means it's not going to give you any protection from the cold ground whatsoever - even a self-inflating pad gives you more protection than that). You'd be amazed how much difference higher R values make on the quality of rest you get while camping.

Is it slower? Maybe, but I inflate mine in two or three inflations of the bag, and that takes me around 60 seconds - it's really not a long time in the big scheme of things - it takes a lot longer to get the tent erected (although that's down to about 5 minutes now). The problem is you can't inflate a high R-value pad without pressure - the reason his inflates so fast is there is no insulation, no down, no pockets, so the air can just go right in. But then so does the cold.

Anyway all I was saying is this isn't a new technique - there's a mattress you can buy today from any MEC/REI that uses this technique.

micro_cam• 13 years ago

An additional constraint is that you don't want any moisture from your breath to get inside an exped down pad as it will reduce the insulation ... their system works really well but it is targeted at winter/high mountain use.

seanalltogether• 13 years ago

I was wondering the whole time whether the kickstarter mattress could handle higher pressures using their technique.

salimmadjd• 13 years ago

I wish you had shared this sooner before I made my purchase :) I noticed the R value of the kickstarter pad. But at 3+ inches it has to be above R:1. My guess is they haven't tested it so just to be safe they have put an R value of 1. Just look at other bags or pad at similar thickness and their R value should at least be in 3-4 range.

dnr2• 13 years ago

You need a lot of interior baffling or insulating material stuffed inside an air mattress to get the R value up to 3 or 4. In a big open tube you get convection, which speeds up heat transfer.

Note that the original NeoAir, which is about the same thickness, is only R 2.5, but that's with a lot more interior baffles plus reflective coating on the inside. The exped mats are filled with down or synthetic insulation.

biot• 13 years ago

If you mean Kickstarter, then you didn't purchase; you simply made a pledge to back the project. You can always cancel your pledge.

stcredzero• 13 years ago

I agree that the exped is better as an insulated ultralight camping pad. The Windcatcher is better for the context of "pad I keep in my backpack around town." The inflation method is simpler and faster, though not by much. It doesn't take much to take you out of the realm of "instant" however.

This would be great for airports, conferences, and maybe even coworking. Not every work/meeting space is civilized enough to recognize the utility of siestas.

Gravityloss• 13 years ago

Seriously, this is totally different.

Exped has a separate sack that you squeeze pump multiple times over. While the OP was just "blow air in" style big opening.

Looks to be about a ten fold difference in effort and time.

Just look at the two videos - can you say with a straight face that they're doing the same thing?

jgrahamc3• 13 years ago

The Kickstarter itself says: "You're supporting an entirely new type of technology that has the potential to inspire new ideas and future innovative products."

No, you are not. Exploiting the pressure difference like this for inflation is not new by a long shot. Just pop down to REI: http://www.rei.com/product/829645/exped-schnozzel-pumpbag

Edit: read rest of replies below for clarification.

peterwwillis3• 13 years ago

When a new technology is introduced, more than one person may implement said technology, and in different ways. Just because someone else has used physics before doesn't mean this is not new.

jgrahamc3• 13 years ago

I agree, but this is not new by a long shot and it's not even new in the domain where it is being applied. So I stand by my statement that the claim being made in the Kickstarter is untrue.

frakkingcylons• 13 years ago

It may not be the first implementation of this kind of technology, but if it does it better and we haven't heard of the others, then it doesn't matter.

jjoonathan2• 13 years ago

There are also entirely passive self-inflating mattresses out there. They're filled with (solid-gas) foam that expands when you open the valve. Close the valve and it's ready to go. You store the energy for pumping when you deflate the mattress by rolling it back up. It's much easier to provide energy by sitting on something than by blowing into it :)

I don't know the brand name, only that they were old and worn by the time I was using them as a kid. They must have been commercially available around 1990.

icebraining• 13 years ago

We have a couple of those, I think we bought them at Decathlon[1] a few years ago. But they're fairly "thin", and not particularly confortable.

My favorite method is still the "foot pump"; some camping matteresses have them integrated, so you just need to open the valve and press down with your foot.

CanSpice• 13 years ago

You're probably thinking of Therm-a-Rest mattresses. According to Wikipedia, they've been around since the early 1970s.

joezydeco• 13 years ago

Just got back from camping and my friend had a Coleman version of this:

http://www.amazon.com/Coleman-Self-Inflating-Camp-Pad-Pillow...

The head pillow is the traditional inflatable thing, but the main pad is exactly as you described.

finnh• 13 years ago

Thanks for the schnozzel link! Just last night I pulled out my exped pad and thought "huh, that's going to be annoying to fill up". Problem solved thanks to your good offices.

Terretta• 13 years ago

> The Kickstarter itself says: "You're supporting an entirely new type of technology

> No, you are not. Exploiting the pressure difference like this for inflation is not new by a long shot.

Did you watch the REI video? It's certainly not giving the same impression. The REI video is cumbersome and tedious. You're basically netting air, then sealing it into a large bag, then smushing the bag to push the air into the mattress. By contrast, the new process feels like a single elegant action.

Watching the two videos, the process feels utterly different: sealing and squashing a pillow vs inflating with a breath into a funnel.

Coincoin• 13 years ago

However, I have the feeling you can inflate the REI one more because the pressure is higher. If I plan on sleeping on that thing overnight, I don't care about the added inconvenience, if it means it will be more comfortable.

I agree that for a nap in the park, the OP one is better and you look like less of a dork inflating it.

pbateman• 13 years ago

I've got one of the schnozzle bags with a compatible mat. It is categorically not cumbersome, not tedious, weighs the same and is filled with down so it has an R-value[1] of 5.9 instead of 1 which is what really matters when you're using a sleeping mat in a tent on a cold night.

[1] The R-value is a measure of how insulating a mat is, higher is better.

v13inc2• 13 years ago

I think it is extremely misleading to summarize this technology as just "exploiting pressure differences for inflation". Technically isn't it impossible to inflate something without exploiting pressure differences?

Back to the OP -- this technology looks like a legitimate advance compared to all the valve technologies I have used previusly for camping. Inflating a mattress is a pretty small part of setting up a campsite, however, and I am not sure inflating a mattress is annoying enough to warrant a new purchase, for me at least.

I am really curious to see where they apply this technology in the future.

v13inc2• 13 years ago

This comment from Zmetta [1] does a good job of explaining the physics without attempting to reduce them to an ad-hominem attack.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5743500

Edit: typos

JohnHaugeland• 13 years ago

You could use springs, in sort of a reverse bellows effect.

aneth4• 13 years ago

Seems pretty new to me. The Schnozzel is not remotely the same product. I don't think they are claiming that effect they are exploiting is a new technology, rather integrating that directly into the nosel of an inflatable.

kwamenum86• 13 years ago

If this is their IP they should license the technology out to an established company. If this isn't their IP they're kind of screwed anyway.

tomrod• 13 years ago

I like the concept. I'd be willing to contribute though if it deflated and folded up small instead. I don't mind inflating an air mattress.

alan• 13 years ago

I'm more interested in this "one-way valve" they're talking about. While they seem to talk mostly about blowing, the valve seems to be the actual invention.

tlrobinson2• 13 years ago

Avalanche airbags use the same (or similar) phenomenon to inflate to a larger volume than the compressed gas canister contains.

I thought it was the venturi effect, but maybe entrainment is more accurate.

marcamillion• 13 years ago

I don't get all the negative, visceral reactions to this product.

Who cares if the physics/technology is "breakthrough"?

It's clear that this is being positioned as a suitable alternative to the battery operated pumped up mattress. The ones sold in Walmart, Target, etc.

I own one of those, and they are a pain to deal with. This looks awesome.

Who cares if there are others out there already - that proves that the market exists and the technology is feasible. My concern with this is, given that I don't understand the technology behind it, and I have never seen it before - is that it is too fanciful to work. i.e. is this another "Kickstarter fraud"?

The presence of existing products on the market that use similar technology is surprisingly re-assuring.

If I were an avid camper, I would definitely buy this.

joeld42• 13 years ago

Ah, closures. Is there anything they can't do?

d0c5• 13 years ago

Oh. I must be here to tell you that things that are inflated can do only one thing next.. I spend half my life outdoors and even though 75D ripstop is more than most, I fear entropy will eventually have its way. Btw I use a corrugated egg box kind of thing.

New closure allows camping mattress to be inflated in seconds

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