I find Kickstarter and other crowd-funding sites to be really interesting and a great way for innovators and creators to bring their ideas to market. However, I can’t say that I’ve backed a campaign.
A new carry-on just became the most funded luggage ever on Kickstarter, blowing away its intended funding goal.
The G-RO carry-on luggage does look like a very interesting and smartly designed piece of luggage which I found out about from Curbed.
When you take a look at it, you’ll notice the strange yet cool- looking over-sized slim wheels. The wheels have so much height that they appear to go close to half way up the luggage.
The reason for the larger wheel is pretty interesting. According to the G-Ro video, “They put the center of gravity closer to the rotation axis which makes the bag feel dramatically lighter“. They also strengthen the sides of the bag without taking up additional space from the inside and they run over everything.”
So basically the bag will be easier to walk around with while offering other features like an easy access pocket for essentials & another for liquids, exterior outer pocket for work items like a laptop and the larger inner compartment for personal items/ clothes.
I also like that the bottom of the bag is waterproof.
For an additional cost, you can purchase an electronic module which has a battery for charging your laptop & phone and also has a location tracker.
The initial intended goal was to raise $125,000. In the end, the G-RO Kickstarter campaign has raised over $3.3 million from over 8,700+ backers.
Early birds could’ve had a bag for $199 or two for $279. The current pre-order price for one G-RO is $299 + shipping.
The G-RO does look like a pretty impressive piece of luggage filled with lots of practical and useful features. I’d love to see one of them in person to see how it feels pulling it with those over-sized wheels.
What do you think of the G-RO luggage? If you’re interested in pre-ordering one of the, you can check them out on Kickstarter here.
Shane- Good point but the bag does look really interesting.
blueline7- How are you liking the Rimowa so far? Considering the bag does have a good amount of tech inside, I could see some wanting to wait for the next generation.
I saw this Kickstarter project, and if I hadnt recently bought a Rimowa I probably would have given it a shot. It looks really interesting and like a great idea. But two things held me back in addition to that; 1. Having 4 multidirectional wheels makes a difference when trying to get your bag down an airplane aisle sideways; 2) My guess is that the second or third generation of this kind of product would work out a lot of inevitable design flaws and kinks, and since the price is already close to the ultimate retail price, I figured might as well wait.
At 8 lbs this bag is way too heavy for me. I’ll stick with lighter bags that come in between 5-6 lbs. Weight = money for checkin when traveling.