I built a prototype of a tablet sleeve that would allow me to use my Surface without taking it out of my bag; just plugging in my Xreal glasses and having a wireless keyboard, I could turn almost anywhere into a workspace.  It feels like this would amp up my travel productivity, but everything in the marketplace is a massive contraption intended for VR users, not one-bag travellers.

It’s made of that corrugated plastic paneling they make yard signs from, welded into a box that I drop the tablet into.  I built it such that there is an open air plenum at the bottom, about 30mm deep, where the inside face of the plastic panels have been cut away to allow the air in the plenum to escape through the channels to the top of the sleeve. By leaving the top of the backpack of briefcase open, it could facilitate the movement of cool air into the tablet vents, down into the plenum, and back up through the air channels. 

I tried it out on a 3-day air trip, but the passive air circulation was clearly not cutting it, and eventually the thermal throttling would kick in. So I decided to add a fan, finding one the same thickness was as the panels, and installing it into the panel with a USB cable pigtailed out to a power bank.  

So far this one seems to be working pretty well; I haven’t yet experienced any throttling afterwards a few hours working out of the backpack. The fan pushes air out through about a dozen of the channels, and has decent flow and pressure; I can feel the warm air coming out of the top of my bag when it is running. 

I think the next version I may try to incorporate a Surface charging plug into the bottom of the sleeve, to magnetically attach when I drop the tablet in.  Then I can have a power bank that will provide power to both the fan and the tablet, which will keep me running all day, and never have to find an outlet or plug anything in.



So I made a thing…