How to Hack Your Big Jambox for Truly Portable Sound
If you love music or sound, you probably already know of the Jambox by Jawbone — yes, that’s right, the same company that makes the infamous headsets and fitness bands. The Jambox is one of our favorite products ever. You heard us, EVER! It’s a portable speaker the size of a brick that lets you connect to it from any bluetooth-enabled device (like your smartphone) to listen to super crazy amplified music or sound.
Now, the company is cranking up the volume by introducing the Jambox’s new sibling, Big Jambox. (Creative naming, huh?) The Big Jambox, while not as small and portable as it’s younger brother, boasts several more powerful features including an even crazier amount of volume (this thing can power the music in several rooms of a house at once!), a built-in battery that lasts up to 15 hours for continuous playback or 500 hours on standby, as well as the ability to pair two devices at once, allowing you and a friend to both control the tunes. We’ve been lucky enough to play with this gadget for a couple months now and rely on it to power us through the workday at Brit HQ. (Brit Tip: You can even use it as an enhanced speaker phone for all of your conference calls! We love this feature.)
The one big bummer about Big Jambox? It’s not too easy to carry around. Sure, you could spend $50 on the carrying case, but even that doesn’t allow you to enjoy a hands-free experience where you can “jam” on the go.
That’s why we’ve come up with our very own Big Jambox hack. Hey, we hacked the Jawbone UP, we had to hack the Jambox, too! Our primary goal was to create a simple DIY concept that would enable us to carry our speaker around with music playing, while enjoying the sound hands-free. As a bonus, we decided to add pockets to hold a cell phone and charger, two very necessary accessories.
All you need for this hack? An old canvas tote bag and some good old fashioned VELCRO® Brand Fasteners! Here’s the step-by-step:
First, find an old canvas tote and cut out two 4″x7″ rectangles. Don’t have a canvas tote? You can use any type of sturdy fabric you have lying around.
Next, stitch up your rectangles into pockets by sewing around the edges, fabric folded inside out. We used a machine, but this is definitely small enough to be hand sewable, too.
Okay, that’s the end of the hard stuff. From here on out, it’s all about the VELCRO® Fasteners!
Find two pieces of VELCRO® Brand Industrial Strength fasteners and adhere one piece to each end of your Big Jambox. Trim as needed. The strength of the fastener is important here because this is the primary way your shoulder strap will stay connected to your speaker.
Next, use two all-purpose straps and connect them together, forming a circular loop. This will be your shoulder strap.
Place the shoulder strap around the bottom of your Big Jambox and adhere the VELCRO® fasteners together. Wa-lah! There’s your carrying strap! That probably took you about 3 minutes total, huh? I told you it was easy!
Now, to add your pockets…
Grab a couple of strips of VELCRO® Brand Fabric Fusion™ tape and an iron. You’ll first want to iron one half of the tape to each side of your shoulder strap where the strap overlaps with the speaker. The other half of the tape should be ironed onto the backside of your pockets. Note that the fabric should cool completely before proceeding.
Once your fabric has cooled, go ahead and attach your pockets. We added a couple more pieces of VELCRO® fasteners to the outer top edge of each pocket back to ensure the pocket stayed adhered to the Jambox.
You’re all done! How easy was that? Now, just fill up your pockets with whatever gear you want — an iPhone, lip gloss, keys, cords, etc — then turn on your Big Jambox and head out on the town for your hands-free, wireless music experience. We can’t wait to take ours to the beach!
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