LunaTik & TikTok Unboxed

LunaTik and TikTok are a pair of wrist bands specifically designed to turn your iPod Nano into a multi-touch wrist watch. These beautiful watch straps were designed by Scott Wilson, former creative director at Nike Watches and founder of the Minimal design studio. They are beautifully designed and perfectly matched to the Nano. The best complement I can make is that if Apple designed a wrist band for the iPod Nano, it would probably look like this.

What really makes this band interesting was the way Scott and the Minimal team developed it. They had a great idea for converting the iPod Nano into a multi-touch watch, and to raise the capital they needed to take the bands from concept to production, they turned to Kickstarter. Kickstarter  allows people with an idea for a product, production or service to recruit micro-investments. The “investors” give a few bucks (or more), and rather than getting a share of ownership, they get the satisfaction of supporting someone with a great idea achieve their dream. And in some cases (as with TikTok and LunaTik) you get something in exchange.

Scott smartly put together great donor levels incentives. Pledge $25 or more and get a TikTok band. Pledge $50 or more and you got a LunaTik iPod Nano watch conversion kit. For $70 or more you got both. There were even bigger, fancier packages. In Scott’s case, their goal was to raise $15,000 — the minimum they felt they needed to justify the cost of going to production. They set a pledge deadline of December 16, but the response surprised them.

In the end, 13, 512 backers pledged a total of $941,718!

Needless to say, the project was a success, not only for Scott Wilson and Minimal, but for Kickstarter as well. Not that it wasn’t without some bumps in the road. Fulfillment was fraught with problems, as it turned out Kickstarter allowed people to pledge money without giving full addresses — obviously necessary for those getting the watch bands.

Scott did a great job of keeping the backers up to date with regular emails outlining the progress. He included photos as he travelled to China to meet with the manufacturer and shared videos of the bands being made.

A few notes about TikTok and LunaTik

• The are designed to work with the 6th generation iPod Nano (the current model, as of Feb. 2011).
• The iPod Nano is not included.
• It is super easy to remove the iPod Nano from the TikTok. Snap it in; snap it out.
• The LunaTik, on the other hand, is accurately labeled a watch conversion kit. While you can technically take your iPod Nano back out, it takes a couple special tools and some time.
• They are big, but there are bigger watches out there. It’s definitely more of a man-sized watch though (sorry ladies).

The final product? See for yourself. Click any image below for a larger version.

Check out other projects on Kickstarter, learn what else Minimal has been designing, and if you’re interested in the LunaTik and TikTok watch bands, you can find out more at LunaTik.com.

One Last Thought

Someone is probably wondering why I would need both a LunaTik and a TikTok band, after all, I only have on iPod Nano. The reality is, I do not need both. I am thinking of a clever way to give one away. If you’ve got any ideas, leave me a comment!