Phorce: This awesome smart bag charges your laptop & phones, looks good, and warns you when you forget it

Launching this week on Kickstarter, Phorce is a new kind of smart gadget bag that will protect and carry your stuff, charge your laptop or phone, transform from a messenger bag to a backpack, warn you via an iOS or Android app when you appear to have forgotten it, and yes, even look good over your shoulder.

According to its designers, Phorce is a world first smart bag.

Created by serial entrepreneur and Kauffman Foundation scholar Marijn Berk with case designer James Jeffrey, the bag is designed to let you go mobile without worrying about power. Use it for your Macbook Air, and you’ve got an extra seven hours of computing. Or, charge up to three USB devices — your phone, speakers, or tablet — simultaneously. Phorce can charge your iPhone 5 over eight times — wow — or your Samsung Galaxy S III about six times.

The bag communicates with your smartphone via Bluetooth, telling you how much power you’ve got left and how many times Phorce can recharge your various devices, and it will remind you that it needs charging itself when it’s running low.

Even better, that Bluetooth connection warns you when your bag has been left behind in the coffee shop or office … so you’ll possibly never lose your bag again.

Creators Berk and Jeffery are looking to raise $150,000 on Kickstarter. The bag design appears to be basically finished, but this will help them, they say, go big and go international right away.

The bag will retail for $349, but Kickstarter supporters can get in at just $219. There are two versions: Phorce for USB, with three USB charging ports, and Phorce for Mac, with an additional MacBook power port for Magsafe-powered laptops. This version will retail for $449 but will be available on Kickstarter for $299.

The specs include:

• 54 Wh Battery capacity
• 3 USB charging ports
• Bluetooth
• Phorce app (iOS & Android).
• Weight:  3.7 lbs / 1.7 kg
• Dimensions:  W x D x D – 18 x 12 x 4 inch (+240 cubic inches when expanded)
• Padded laptop pocket fits most laptops up to 14-inch, and all MacBooks up to 15-inch.
• Includes high-speed compact wall charger that fully charges Phorce in 4 hours

Phorce is a pricey bag, no doubt. But it’s also a very cool, smart-looking, and smart-acting gadget bag. I haven’t handled one physically yet, but I plan to when it is released — at which point I’ll be able to offer a more definitive hands-on review.

I expect to see some of them at tech conferences in the coming months, assuming Phorce meets its funding goals.

Interested?

The Kickstarter campaign is going live this week.