It might look a bit odd to write about headgear when summertime is approaching but there are parts in our global village who prepare for the wintertime and don’t forget even the best summer has it’s cooler days and nights.

Having established this lets move on to look what the iLogic Sound Hat can offer: it has built-in speakers resting over your ears which makes listening to music more enjoyable over longer times compared to earplug style headphones which have the habit to fall out easily especially if you move around.

A 98cm (38.58 inch) wire with a 3.5mm jack is tucked into the internal lining allowing you to plug into any iPod or other music playing device that has a headphone jack. The long wire gives enough freedom to have the player in a pocket or even bag.

The hat which comes only in black is made from 100% polyester and can be hand-washed after removing the speakers.

The iLogic Sound Hat’s simplicity in form and function offers a very good solution to protect your head and ears against the chill and gives comfortable listening experience. A good example how the integration of technology into clothing accessories makes perfect sense.

Available by I-want-one-of-those.com for £14.99 ($26.98)

Burton, well known for the fashion-street-skating-snowboarding brand and the very first brand that commercialized an interactive backpack added a BoomBag or Ghetto Blaster backpack to it’s range called: Feedback Pack.

Actually, the Feedback Pack has been available since 2007 but Burton made a style makeover for a Spring 2008 launch with cool looking designs.

The Feedback Daypack has a built-in stereo speaker set, an amplifier and auxiliary input allowing to connect any portable audio player or a laptop that has an 3.5mm headphone plug. A tear-off CD storage panel fits underneath the zippered speaker cover.

The large main compartment comes with a laptop sleeve. A great feature for skater: the Feedback includes vertical skateboard carry straps.

The speaker module as well as the backpack itself is weather resistant so there is no worry if you walk down the street in rain. The Feedback Pack will keep on playing.

Available in Rock Salt Bullet (my personal style favorite, see photo above) and True Black Strict Plaid, the Feedback Pack can take a lot of stuff on board measuring 19in x 11in x 9in / 48cm x 27cm x 22cm adding up to a volume of 24l.

There are many online stores selling the Feedback Pack for $ 89.95 for example following this link.

Burton’s choice of speaker technology might not be as ‘magic’ as the NXT technology but it does give good sound quality and most important: another option to have decent background sound while skating, a basketball game or just relaxing in the great outdoors.

As there was a time in the 80s and 90s where a Boom box or Ghetto Blaster was a must have item, it seems the 21st Century equivalent will be the BoomBags.

We had an article on talk2myShirt last October speculating about the revival of the BoomBox trend of the 80s in form of bags and backpacks with speaker and amplifier integrated to hook up to our 21st century small audio players like the iPod.

Sure enough another option is coming to the market via iWorld with a bag design that takes the retro spirit for a Wearable boombox to a higher level.

With the fashionable retro design of the Boom Bag in the style of an Tape Deck or an DJ Mixer, sharing music has never been more fun.

This Boom Bags will let you share your music wherever you are, in the park or on the cool beach party or on the sports ground to cheer you on, the reasons for having a boom bag box are endless.

Revive the spirit of the 80′s Boom Box era with this 21st century wearable boom bag that cleverly hides an FM radio and set of speakers ready to connect any portable audio device like iPod or other MP3 player, mobile phone, CD player anything that comes with an 3.5mm headphone plug and gives out an audio signal.

In the 80s many carried around big boom boxes. At the begin of the 21st century we can carry around boom bags that give off sound just like the boomboxes in the last century only we have now the option of a soft touch and multifunctional boomboxes that double as bag.

Boombox evolution enabled by wearable technologies

The price for this retro hip bag is very reasonable at £18.99 which makes in $37.82 in US currency. Available via iWorld’s online shop.

[via Chip Chick]

We have covered G-Tech products numerous times, no wonder they have a large selection of iPod and Audio bags in their program so it was fairly easy to find a hot bargain: the Soundwave Backpack with integrated soft speaker technology from NXT.

Reason for me to look around for Audio Backpacks: I noticed today quite some youngsters on the street using all kind of accessories to listen to their iPod or other MP3 player via external speaker. Not sure if this is becoming a trend or is it related to the energized spirit spring brings with it.

Coming home I scanned the Internet about backpacks with audio function and sure enough G-Tech came up right on the top. Looking a bit closer I found a real bargain, the roomy Soundwave Backpack with plenty of space for a laptop and many of the other stuff students or office worker need for the day.

The cool thing on the Soundwave is: part of the front material of the backpack acts as a speaker thanks to the NXT flat-panel speaker technology. Connect any audio source via the 3.5mm headphone connector and you have voluminous sound, be it for your and your friends enjoyment or for a more ‘serious’ use as audio element in presentations to enhance the laptop integrated speaker sound.

The Speaker/amplifier requires 3 AA batteries and will run an average of 8 hours but this depends largely on the volume setting, louder means shorter battery life time.

Available is the Soundwave in the color schemes grey/black and beige/brown for not more than $46.99 a real bargain even if there would be no sound(wave) in this backpack.

The only downside is: there are no controls in the shoulder strap so each time you need to adjust the volume or go to the next song you need to take out your player to do this – the old fashion way.

The Soundtrack T-Shirt started out as an April Fool’s day joke but will become reality thanks to the power of the Consumer voice.

Point in case: on April 1st we (and many other blogs) posted about the Soundtrack T-Shirt from ThinkGeek which  was ‘created’ as an April Fool’s day joke. An attempt to order it ended on a page saying what it was: 1st of April, sorry we don’t ship this item.

But things changed over at ThinkGeek as they where overwhelmed with requests from all over the Internet so they decided it’s time to make the Soundtrack T-Shirt for real.

Here is the text from ThinkGeeks Website regarding the Soundtrack T-Shirt:
Important Note – Due to overwhelming popular demand we’re turning this April Fool’s product into a real product and it might take a little while.

It seems a lot of people are exited about having a personal sound track while walking through life.

We will keep an eye on ThinkGeek and report back once they start shipping or you sign up for an email notification on their site to be the first to have it.

This example shows the power of the consumer voice – without the huge response ThinkGeek might just have filed this idea as April Fool’s day joke.

Having difficulty to fall asleep after a stressful day? We found something to skip the sleeping pills: the Sleep Better Sleepsonic® Speaker Pillow.

We had all sorts of speaker pillows in our coverage but the new range of Sleepsonic® is positively outstanding.

Firstly there is the benefit of not needing additional batteries unlike all the other speaker pillows we have seen so far. No need to change the batteries of your pillow – great.

A volume control on the pillow allows to fine tune the volume setting making it easy to glide into dream land.

Secondly, there is a range of different designs available to choose from like: polar fleece, brocade quilt and natural cotton quilt fabric cover in the colors white or black.

Any digital, stereo CD/tape, MP3, PC, portable or home stereo system can be connected. Small devices close to the pillow or with the included extension cord (9 ft) further away.

The high sound quality comes from a pair of built-in custom-made stereo speakers which are integrated into the pillows inner part.

Sleepsonic’s speaker pillows can be used on its own, inside your pillowcase, or on top of your personal sleep pillow (like in the image on top) – whatever you prefer.

Prices range from $109.95 up to $136.95 depending on pillow size and material type. Available online by Sleepsonic or other online retailers.

Recently we covered a design concept of the glow Pillow that helps getting you up softly in the morning and the speaker pillow helps getting you into dreamland softly and relaxed. I wonder when both worlds will meet in one and the same pillow.

School supplies never sounded so good! Five Star®, maker of cool, high quality binder adds a new dimension to binders by integrating NXT speaker technology.

That’s a innovative way breathing new life in commodities like binders, something that has been around for ages. Sure, you select your binder based on the looks, your favorite color, image of your band or club or any of the many reasons you have.

Now you have the option of an integrated speaker that gives your binder character and individuality.

I’m not suggesting you forcefully entertain your class mates with your music, keep your earphones, I am suggesting you could use this as audio element for your project presentations.

Like the business people that have their own option to use their laptop bags as speaker (just look around our blog) students too have the option with the Sound Binder to impress teachers, professor and the rest of your class.

The Sound Binder works with any MP3 player, portable DVD player or Laptop. The top flab has a light weight small-profile speaker from NXT that gets it’s sound from an amplifier powered by 4 AAA batteries.

Available in black/black, black/red, black/pink, and black/blue via this online shop for $ 29.99

Class lasts all year. Make sure you’ve got the gear to go the distance and makes sound fun

Industrial design student Joonas Saaranen added his view on the 21st Century boom box by creating the Reppo II backpack with a pair of full-range speakers and an amplifier.

Unlike the growing number of sound backpacks we have covered so far, the Reppo II is a urban hardshell backpack with conventional speakers as compared to the more softer speaker technology provided by NXT.

Nevertheless, the sound quality of the Reppo II should be better and more powerful than the soft panel speaker with NXT technology but one has to make a choice between softness and a lighter backpack versus more sound power and a heavier hard-shell backpack.

Saaranen has no plan yet to commercialize the Reppo II concept so we do not need to make that choice any time soon between soft or hard, the Reppo II is a one off prototype based on his vision and a small scale focus group testing.

Hard-shell backpacks are not new and have their fans. Adding a power sound function is not as far fetched as it might sound but … we like the soft, more flexible type of technology integrated into bags and clothing.

[Joonas Saaranen via technabob]

Staying on the musical side, we have another great product to introduce, the RedLine iPod Sound Bag to enjoy listening to Kanye West from your iPod connected to this first class MacBook case via the ‘magic sound’ speaker from NXT.

That’s music in our ears in every aspect. The Sound Bag has a stylish design and connects with ALL iPods, that’s why it is only available via the Apple Store where all cool stuff on this planet can be found.

With a zipped front compartment the Sound Bag is RedLine’s vision for not only transporting but playing your iPod in one easy to carry design.

The speaker is completely, from the outside invisible, integrated into the bags structure thanks to NXT’s flat panel speaker technology.

To top off the coolness of this bag, the light will come on inside the bag and reveal more areas to store your iPod and other stuff. A neat addition that brings some light to the mess stuff inside of your bag.

The Redline iPod Sound Bag is available on the Apple store in UK for £79.95 ($ 156.90) a very reasonable price for the coolest MacBook bag I have ever seen, even without all the bells and whistles this Redline bag offers.

The perfect gear for the road warriors in Black on Black Unique Camo material Teflon coated with leather trim.

Although the ‘i‘ in the name of the iConnect™ Pillow might imply it works only with the all time favorite iPod, it is actually not the case.

The iConnect™ Pillow works with everything that has an 3.5mm headphone port which 99.99% of all portable audio player have.

To manage your expectations, this speaker pillow like many others are not speaker boxes, so don’t expect to replace your speaker system with them.

Speaker pillows like the iConnect are for a bit fun with a little luxury usefulness. Actually not that luxury if you look to the price below. Usefulness, it allows you to listen to your soft tunes in dreamy moments while resting your head on the pillow.

There is no amplifier in the pillow to pump up the sound, just a small speaker and a pouch to store the audio player under the pillow. The iConnect Pillow is for the soft and dreamy moments in life – simple as that.

The iConnect™ Pillow is available by bedbathandbeyond.com for just $ 4.99 (they have a clearance sale to hurry up if you want it) in the colors: Black, Aqua, Berry and Chocolate.

Stretch out in front of your fireplace while the weather is too harsh to be outside and enjoy the cozy sound from your iConnect™ Pillow.

[via: ShinyShiny]