A
Practical Wearable Computer: How to Make Your Own Tummy PC
© 2005, 2006 by John Smart
(This article may be
excerpted or reproduced in its entirety for noncommercial purposes.)
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Sections
Below
Tummy
PC 1.0 (1998-2005): NEC MobilePro HPC
Tummy PC 2.0 (2006+): Sony VAIO TX17 PC
The Tummy PC is my name for a lightweight, wearable personal computer worn at the waist like a "tummy pack," with a near full-sized touch-typeable keyboard and optional nylon fabric covering the case when closed, so it looks unobtrusive. This is a very productive and useful form factor I hope to see much more of in coming years.
Tummy PC 1.0 (1998-2005): NEC MobilePro HPC
My
Version 1.0 Tummy PC was a 1.8 lb, J-class clamshell handheld personal
computer (HPC) based on the NEC
MobilePro HPC (9.6" x 5.2" x 1.1", picture left).
This device is at the upper end of what I consider the optimal size for a waist-wearable machine. Unfortunately it has all the drawbacks of a system without the full Windows OS. I began wearing it in 1998, with the debut of the MobilePro 750 (MP).
When the clamshell is open, the HPC screen juts out about 4" from the waistline, for easy (though less efficient than the mouse) touchscreen navigation (picture right). The MP's 95% size keyboard is great for fast touch typing (50-80 wpm is easy), which must for me, as a writer, be a minimum feature of any wearable. When closed, the fabric case cover makes the HPC look like a tummy pack, and my case cover includes a pouch for a second battery, very useful on the road.
This article tells you how to make your own Tummy PC. It also tells you about the Windows XP-based Sony Vaio TX ultraportable I migrated to in late 2005. I made this switch after seven years using the NEC MobilePro, because I decided full Windows OS was more valuable to me than easy wearability. I long to return to the Tummy PC 1.0 size as soon as possible however.
The "instant on" feature of the MobilePro allows your Tummy PC to be on and ready as soon as you open it on your belt. You can set it so it comes on and goes off when you open or close the case, so you don't have to touch the power button anymore. You can easily type 50-80 words a minute either sitting or standing, plenty fast enough to catch all but the most heated conversations around you. The touchscreen gives you an intuitive interface (though not as fast as a wearable mouse) for your HPC apps, and adding a wi-fi card allows you to waist-browse the web near any hotspot.
For more on the NEC MobilePro visit Rich Hawley's great MobilePro 900C compatibility site (which also has MP900C software lists and mod tips). You might also look at other HPC sites, like John Ottini's HPC Factor. The best forum to get help and advice from other MobilePro users and experts is probably PocketPC's NEC MobilePro Forum.
Today, the only company making J-class wearables that I know of is NEC. They sell a lot of these in Japan, and for many years have sold them almost exclusively through the web in the U.S. They do a good business selling them to vertical markets including salespeople and health care workers here, so with luck this clever form factor will remain alive and available for the forseeable future. I can't wait to see someone shoehorn full Windows into this form factor. It's only a matter of time.
If
you wear a belt, you'll want to wear the buckle to one side (picture right)
or go beltless. With either of the two mounting options provided below
you will find you can safely run (for planes, to class, etc.) while wearing
it, and won't even need to take it off when you drive, as you can strap
your seatbelt right over or under your Tummy PC as you prefer. For everyone's
safety, please don't use your Tummy PC while you drive.
Because I write a lot and like to review and prioritize my agenda, I would guess my TummyPC has roughly doubled my productivity over just using my desk-based and laptop PC's, primarily because the HPC is instant-on and always accessible when I'm wearing it. (2007 Note: My Tummy PC 2.0 is no longer instant-on, and because it's bigger and heavier I usually wear it in a small backpack instead of at the belt when I go out, so this doesn't apply nearly as much as it did with my 1.0 device).
Because of the Mobile Pro's energy-efficient solid state design (no hard drive), with fresh regular-size MC-BA9 batteries (available at places like http://www.Gementerprises.com for about $15 each) you'll can expect four to five hours of use out of each (three if you are constantly using Wi-Fi), giving you six to ten hours of cord-free use. I recommend keeping an extra AC adapter in your car and one in your backpack for emergency recharges. After several months of daily use your batteries will start to degrade in performance. Buy two replacement batteries on eBay every eight months (put it in your calendar) and you should always be powered up well.
Professionals who are mobile much of the day, like medical students, can greatly benefit from a Tummy PC 1.0 as their PDA, with lots of reference data loaded on it, if you don't mind the curious stares (cellphones looked funny too, at first) when you use it. So can students, who will find this an ideal notetaker. I'd also recommend this strongly for writers, who will find it easy to input interesting thoughts wherever and whenever they occur. Significantly better than speaking into a voice recorder, as you can edit and reorganize your thoughts on the spot, when inspiration strikes and the ideas are emerging in your head.
Ready to make your own Tummy PC 1.0? Just follow the three-step directions at the bottom of this article. If instead you decide you need full Windows on your wearable computer (as I did in late 2005), you may want to upgrade to the Tummy PC 2.0, outlined below (though you will lose some wearability).
Another tip, useful on all your keyboards (desktop and wearable computers): you may also want to remove your Caps Lock key (just pry it off with a knife), so you no longer hit it by accident. If you are a fast typer, Caps Lock is just a sand trap waiting for your fingers to fall into it. You can still depress the plastic bump whenever you need to activate or deactivate Caps Lock, which is typically never for most users. Caps Lock is an archaic holdover that has no place on the modern keyboard!
Tummy PC 2.0 (2006+): Sony VAIO TX17 PC
In
Sept 2005 Sony introduced a full-featured ultraportable laptop, the VAIO
VGN-TX17GP. At 2.7 pounds and with a small form factor (10.7”
wide x 7.7" deep x 1.12” thick) it is not nearly as wearable
(1 inch wider, 2.5 inches deeper, same thickness) as the NEC MobilePro,
but the TX runs Windows XP, not CE. It has everything you'd expect in
a standard laptop, even a DVD burner. Once this machine came out, along
with Verizon's affordable broadband cellphone modem, I decided that the
full portable email and internet functionality was finally enticing enough
for me to move to a Windows XP-based wearable machine. I'm hopeful we'll
see even lighter and smaller versions of this in 2007 or 2008. Please.
Soon.
At $2200 it isn't cheap, so some folks may want to stay with a Tummy PC 1.0 for the time being, but the processor is a Pentium M 1.2 Ghz, and it comes with 512MB of 400Mhz memory, expandable to 1.5GB ($100 online, you can install it yourself). With the extra memory I find it adequately fast as my dedicated email computer, even with multiple open productivity applications. You should make sure you aren't irritated by the fan noise before you buy your TX-17. It is a bit loud and some people are bothered by that, but I find it easy to ignore.
Besides serious miniaturization, including fitting an optical drive inside, the TX's biggest innovation is its screen. It has wide (11.1" diagonal) high resolution (1366x768) WXGA LCD display, but the real advance is their use of white organic LED (the "light source of the future") as the backlight, instead of the typical CCFLs (cold cathode flourescent lamps). This makes the screen very bright, readable even in direct sunlight, and more than twice as energy efficient as the CCFL technology. This screen gives the laptop a real-world battery life of four to five hours (six to eight if you buy the extended battery, which I did immediately, and am very happy with).
You should know that Sony has a reputation for being overly aggressive with their digital rights management tools (eg., their recent rootkit fiasco). But if you believe they will ultimately play fair when challenged, as I do, you may be willing to support their innovation by buying their products.
To
get your internet anywhere 24/7 you'll
want the Verizon
BroadbandAccess Cellular Modem Card which will give you broadband
access to the web wherever you can get a cell signal. DON'T
buy the U.S. versions of this laptop, the VGN-TX670, TX750, 770, or 790,
as they come preinstalled with the substandard Cingular 2.5G cellular
modem. Instead you'll want to order the international version (VAIO VGN-TX17GP)
direct from your local Sony store, then go to a Verizon store and buy
their BroadbandAccess
card ($60/month for unlimited data bandwidth) on a one year contract.
Verizon uses true 3G EV-DO
technology and Sprint and Cingular currently have the most advanced wireless
network in the U.S. The more of us reward the technology innovators early,
the sooner we'll see real competition and cost reduction. I started using
this modem in 2005 for $80 a month, and hopefully $40 a month is only
another year or two away with good consumer adoption and competition.
The Verizon and Sprint EVDO modems are the only setups I know that let you surf the internet wirelessly almost anywhere (over 180 major cities are covered at this point by Verizon) at close to cable modem and DSL download speeds (do the tests yourself if you disbelieve me!). As a minor drawback vs. wired use, your uploads will be only 25% of cable/DSL speed, but EVDO Revision A (the next version of EVDO, with 50% faster downloads and 100% faster uploads) is going to fix that. EVDO Rev A will roll out over 2007 on both Sprint and Verizon's national networks. Sprint has the first Rev A network running in San Diego in Oct 2006 (lucky San Diegans!). You'll find EVDO cellular broadband even works in a car driving at 60 miles an hour (with you as passenger, I hope). That makes it either Star Trek technology or the minimum requirement for 21st century living, depending on your attitude with regard to these things.
It's truly excellent having the ability to get out of my familiar and private work environments and go to a bustling public "third space" (not home, not work) with my TX-17, get fast internet access and have all my email and productivity apps with me. I keep a second charger cord in my backpack so I don't have to unplug the one from my desk. Its also very rewarding to take short breaks between work sessions to browse interesting locations at or near the third space (coffee shop, bookstore, restaurant, etc.), and have interesting face to face conversations I couldn't have at home or work.
Using the TX-17 in sleep mode makes it a close to "instant on" device. At my waist it will boot up from sleep 5 seconds after you open the lid and touch any key, so it is still usable for catching quick notes, though not nearly as quick as the solid state Tummy PC 1.0, which is truly instant on. It sleeps automatically 15 seconds after you close the lid.
To
make your Vaio wearable, you will need to add professional grade adhesive
fasteners on the bottom, so you can string your belt through the fasteners
and wear it at the waist, as well as have the option of unbuckling it
and wearing it at a table like a typical notebook PC. A great company
to get the fasteners from is Click
Bond. Try their CB9205
Webbing Loop (picture right). The internal hole is 1.3 x 0.25 inches,
large enough for a dress belt. Click Bond provides an industrial strength
adhesive and mounting system.
Note: Because Tummy PC 2.0 is so much bigger and heavier than 1.0, you'll find you wear it only rarely at your belt. I typically bring it with me everywhere in a small backpack instead. But it's very nice to have the wearable option, and you will find it particularly useful when you are walking slowly through information-rich environments (museums, libraries, etc.) and want to consult the internet while you are doing so. (Again, as long as you don't mind the stares).
The easiest way to create the back standoff is to purchase the extended battery (VGP-BPL5, same one for all of the TX models, $220 at PriceGrabber). This gives you an additional 2-4 hours of real world capacity, for a total of six to eight hours, under heavy use with the EVDO card running constantly and the screen at full brightness. With the webbing loops and the extended battery attached, the laptop sits level on the table when you aren't wearing it, raised up from the table about a half inch, at an even better height for touch typing. It will also run cooler now that there's space under the unit.
Order
two webbing loops for the bottom of your TX, which you will orient vertically
as belt loops. On the back right, peel off the black Vaio sticker. After
removing it you can cut it down to just the bar code and serial number
and put it back on as you see here. You now have space for the right webbing
loop. Tape up the two vents on the right underside the way I have here
(I used black electrical tape in this picture) so that no glue gets into
the computer through the vent. On the back left, remove the Windows sticker.
You now have space for the left webbing loop.
Mount the webbing
loops as shown in this picture. Position the right hand loop as close
to each of the taped up vents as possible. Mount the left hand loop symmetric
to the right one, but set in from the edge about 1/4". You want less
than seven inches of space (6.75") between the webbing loops when
they sit on your belt, so they won't get in the way of the belt loops
on your pants. If you pry out the plastic nubs on the back of the Vaio
in the middle of each side, you can use Click Bond's clear plastic auto
mounting systems. Clean off the back of the Vaio with some rubbing alcohol,
mix up the acrylic glue, apply it to the back of the loops and press them
down using the mounting system. When dry in a few hours, pry off the mounting
systems
and DON'T FORGET to remove the tape you placed over the vents. Here's
how the bottom should look now:
You may notice that your TX touchpad causes random movement errors of your onscreen pointer due to microvibrations. This is a known design flaw of the TX computers, and the only one I've ever experienced. That makes the touchpad quite irritating to use. Fortunately, this doesn't matter much because for editing, cutting, pasting, and pointing, mouses are the most efficient input devices. Coming in a distant second are trackballs, which are efficient for everything except clicking and dragging (as in cutting and pasting text blocks), since they require the user to click and drag with the same fingers, rather than allowing clicking with the fingers and dragging with the hand, as occurs in a mouse. The least efficient pointers for extensive use are touchpads and touchscreens, which offset their space saving by requiring two handed coordination for clicking and dragging.
So you should disable the touchpad (a Control Center setting on the Vaio) and use a mouse with your Tummy PC 2.0, either a conventional or a wearable mouse.
A Simple Wearable Mouse [permalink]
To build a wearable mouse, you can make minor modifications to any small, newer model optical mouse. The laser optics are so good they don't even need a wearable mousepad. All you have to do is hang them off your belt and they mouse very nicely right on your clothes. Here's my current configuration:
1. Buy a good wireless mouse with a scroll wheel. I started with Microsoft's Wireless Notebook Laser Mouse 6000 ($30, picture right). Some folks like Microsoft's older 3000 model better because it clicks and moves very much like a conventional mouse. I have both but I prefer the increased sensitivity and precision of the 6000. It does however takes a week or two to get used to its sensitivity, so you might try before you buy. The USB receiver (grey object sticking out in the pictures above) is also smaller on the 6000 than the 3000. (2007 Note: There are much smaller models of good optical mice now available, so you might use those instead. Even though the TX has bluetooth you might want to avoid the bluetooth mice. I hear the battery life on them is terrible.)
2. Buy an Avery Retractable Name Badge Holder ($6 at Staples, picture right). You are going to clip one end of this to your belt or pants, and attach the other end to your favorite wireless mouse.
3. Drill two small holes (just a bit larger than the thickness of the metal ring on the badge holder) about 1/8'' apart from each other, in the back of your mouse, aligned perpendicular to the bottom of the mouse. If you are using the 6000 you'll find it's particularly easy to drill these holes, one in the crack at the bottom of the open button on the bottom and the other in the crack below the Microsoft logo on the back (see picture). Use a couple of needle nose pliers to pry open the metal ring at the end of the holder. Discard the piece of plastic with metal snaps. Slip the metal ring through the holes in the mouse, and clamp it back down again inside the plastic bit at the end of the holder.
Congratulations,
you've now got a wearable mouse, a simple and natural device that I hope
will catch on increasingly in coming years. Clip it to your belt or pants
and you can now mouse on the side of your body, on your thigh, or take
it off and use it at a table. In a stroke of serendipity this particular
mouse will actually hang down off your belt at just the right length for
comfortable mousing, no need to even pull it away from your waist. You
can tuck the mouse into your pocket when you are walking around if you
want, and even mouse from inside your pockets with the right clothes.
As with the earlier Tummy PC you'll want to move your belt buckle to one
side of your body, in this case to the opposite side of your wearable
mouse.
You might think you would want a wearable trackball instead of a wearable mouse for your Tummy PC, as you would not have to move the mouse against your body. I thought this too at first but on thinking it through I realized that with a trackball you lose all the efficiency of click-and-drag, which would be frustrating for users who do a lot of cutting and pasting and other fine-grained mousing activity. Second, you'd have to learn a new and competitive click-and-drag behavior with the trackball, which takes time and has further disadvantage of making you less adept in the click-and drag you do with a mouse, which will continue to be the standard pointing device on most computers for many years to come. User convenience should come first. Stay with a mouse and you'll be happy.
Here's a few pictures of my original Tummy PC 2.0 setup. (The grey plastic mouse receiver jutting out to one side is not there anymore).
This works surprisingly well. I do get funny comments occasionally about my "Texas-Style Belt Buckle," but I'm sure those will disappear in another five years, as much smaller and lighter versions of these systems emerge and as an increasing number of folks start wearing PCs at their waist (I'd guess a few hundred thousand to a few million people in the US might doing this by 2012). I find the extra weight over Tummy PC 1.0 no problem at all. It's just the size that's a bit too inconveniently large (you can't easily buckle up in the car over Tummy PC 2.0, as you can with 1.0, for example). Still, I find the belt loops quite useful when I'm walking slowly for long periods in information rich environments, and I get tired of holding my PC in one hand.
To
remove the little gray plastic piece (USB Microsoft Notebook Mouse Receiver
v2.0) jutting out in the picture above you can buy a Zip-Linq retractable
USB 1.1 extender (ZIP-USB-C02, $10 at WeLoveMacs,
picture left), plug one end into the USB port, and tape the extender and
the mouse receiver to the bottom of your Tummy PC 2.0. Place the receiver
on the side of the notebook that you like to mouse on, which for me is
the right side, not the left where the USB ports are located. Zip-Linq
also makes a retractable USB 2.0 extender (ZIP-USB2-C02, $12) but the
USB 1.1 extender, the smallest of the bunch, works fine for me.
At
home and when I will be traveling for long periods I plug the TX-17 into
a foldable 19"
LG Flatron 1981Q LCD display, a great dual screen setup. The neat
thing about the 19" Flatron is that you can fold the base flat against
the monitor and it will just fit into a 22 inch airline carry on bag laying
diagonally, so you can stick it in a padded sack, stuff your clothes in
around it and take it with you on the plane whenever you go on an extended
trip.
I bought my carry on bag from REI.com but they've discontinued my model. This Land's End bag looks good, but I don't know if it would work, you'd have to order it and see. Airlines allow carry-ons no larger than 22 x 14 x 9 inches, the dimensions of my bag. I think you will need the full 22 inches, 21 may not work. If there's a luggage store that has bags with these dimensions near you, take your Flatron into the store with you to be sure it fits.
Note: On the small turboprops they don't always allow this size carry on bag. If they ask me to check my monitor bag at the gate (happens about a third of the time) when getting on a turboprop or small jet, I just take out the Flatron (minus the cables) and carry it on the plane. It fits fine in even the turboprop overheads.
Future Wearables (Tummy PC 3.0, 4.0, etc.)
I think a reasonable number of people, perhaps in the low millions, and particularly students and writers, would buy and wear Tummy PCs if they were: 1. the size and weight of the Tummy PC 1.0 (or smaller and lighter), 2. had full Windows on them, 3. used solid state memory (no hard disks and fans), 4. had integrated cellular modems, 5. had bright OLED screens, and 6. were already made for easy wearing at the waist. All of this could be pieced together today by a good Maker. If anyone wants to make one of these, just email me, I'd love to be involved.
Carpal PC
What I call the Carpal PC may be the first great opportunity for a truly mass market full-function wearable (perhaps tens of millions of users). The Carpal PC would involve 1. a truly lightweight and form-fitting display you can wear on the back side of one of your wrists (carpal and metacarpal area, plus a bit of the forearm). 2. a highly-collapsing keyboard (and the main bulk of the PC) on your belt, and 3. an optional wearable mini mouse. Go here for a full explanation of this device. Again, anyone want to try making one today?
Future
Keyboards
I am convinced having a good, lightweight near full sized keyboard at the waist is a real asset (gives your fingers, which are very fast and neurologically precise, something to do), and that touch keyboards will remain useful even in a world with advanced voice recognition, which itself is still many years away.
One good way of saving space would be to use a keyboard that collapses in on itself just a bit (or a lot) when the cover is closed. Keyboard size is now the limiting factor on the size of the Tummy PC at your waist.
The easiest solution I've seen for this is IBM's "butterfly keyboard" for their 1995 ThinkPad 701 notebook computers. When you open the cover of a butterfly, the keyboard springs out from interleaved to a flat configuration almost two inches wider than in the closed position (note the keyboard overhang in the butterfly picture at left), and it is quite stable to type on. IBM engineer John Karidis, who developed the butterfly, tells me it can be cheaply licensed to any wearable PC maker, so the opportunity is there.
Now imagine an ultraportable laptop-sized keyboard that will split into four equal-sized interleaving pieces on the push of a button, making your keyboard into a 2"x5" belt buckle. Your wirelessly connected OLED screen can be on the back of your wrist (carpals) or forearm, and the rest of the PC, except your wearable mouse, can be integrated into your belt. I call that the Carpal PC or Forearm PC, and I think that will be a minimalist system we should see in about five or ten years.
Future Screens
A dual fold screen would be very nice, allowing the user to work with the existing half-sized screen for data entry, but having an extra half that folds out when you want to browse the web or do other full screen work.
Solid State Disks
Windows
on solid state disks (SSDs) is apparently available on portables (and
desktops?) as of May 2006. It promises 25 to 50% faster boot up from startup
and standby. Both Sony
and Samsung
have recently announced laptops with SSDs based on flash memory. Recovery
from standby with SSDs will be faster than the 5 seconds on current laptops,
making it even easier to use your Tummy PC for instant notetaking.
Battery life on the Tummy PC should also be longer with lower SSD power consumption, and durability after dropping will be vastly improved. Cold starts of Windows will drop from a current two minute average on the typical VAIO down to something closer to sixty seconds.
Sony's VAIO VGN-UX50 (picture right) is the most wearable entry in this regard. Besides the solid state disk (due July 2006) it has an LCD touch screen, something the TX-17 currently lacks. Unfortunately, it comes only with a slideout thumb keyboard setup, which makes it unusable for touch typing. But someone will eventually bring solid state to the ultraportable notebook form factor.
In conclusion, I think there's a big unrealized market here, waiting patiently for our collective wits to grow sharper, as Eden Philpott would say. As ultraportables continue to shrink someone will eventually offer an option for belt loops and a wearable mouse, and the mass-market Tummy PC will be born.
Good luck and happy roaming!
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Jeff Thompson for early encouragement, and for the badge holder innovation for the wearable mouse.
Feedback? Mistakes? Omissions? Email me with improvement ideas at johnsmart{at}accelerating{dot}org.
Appendix:
Tummy PC 1.0 Directions
(Note: I no longer use my Tummy PC 1.0 but long
to get my 2.0 device back down to its size and weight!)
1. Purchase a MobilePro HPC ($200-800)
If you are on a restricted budget, MobilePro 780's or 790's are quite cheap nowadays ($200 on eBay, $15 for one extra battery). This will work fine for some, but if you can afford it I recommend the MobilePro 900C ($700-800, $30 for batteries) which has several time-saving innovations. The four best new features are:
• A USB1.1 slot, which allows you to rapidly move files from your Tummy PC to your other computers and back using a keychain flash drive (a $20 Iomega 64MB micro mini flash drive, smaller than a door key, is what I use) instead of using the slow serial port and sync software, which is your only transfer option on the older models.
• A coin cell backup battery holder. It is a dirtly little secret that MobilePro backup batteries typically die after about 18 months of extended daily use, and this was the Achilles heel of older units. When your backup battery dies all the info on your unit vanishes, and you have to go back to your last backup (a month old? a year?) and start over. With the 700 series you must hand solder the replacement backup battery yourself, or pay NEC to do it (a long time without your machine). With the 900 series, you just snap a new one in. I recommend doing so every January (put it in the calendar) and you should never run into a data loss problem, even after years of use.
• The 900 has integrated flash ROM for doing automated onboard backups, which prevents you from losing all your data just in case your backup battery does fail. Automated backup using NEC's supplied bUseful utility is quite simple.
• A new OS, Microsoft CE .NET 4.2, comes in the 900C, and it is a big upgrade from the old HPC 2000 OS on the 900 and 700's, and runs on a faster processor.
• There's also a double size extended battery available.
The only shortcoming of the 900C, from my perspective, is the passive matrix color screen, which is faint in daylight and almost impossible to read in direct sunlight. Sometimes I get the urge to take my Tummy PC to one of my hacker friends and pay them to install an active matrix screen, but it would probably be smarter to wait for NEC to do it for us in a future MobilePro.
2. Choose a Mounting System So You Can Wear it at Your Waist
After thinking about this problem over a few weeks in 1998, I decided the simplest solution would be to mount four cell phone clips on the back of my MobilePro. If you have come up with any other comparably easy and cheap solutions, let me know. I mount two in vertical orientation so I can clip the unit to my pants or to a belt, and two others horizontally as as additional "legs" to make a sturdy four leg "table" out of the device when resting on a flat surface (see picture below).
The best clips I've found are TCC Industries "Clip Kt2's" (http://www.tccinc.com). The double stick adhesive is very strong. Buy at least six clips, because if you use your Tummy PC a lot you may break one of the two that you clip to your waist on occasion, and then you'll need to put a new one on (you can pry the broken clip off the unit with two jeweler's screwdrivers wedged underneath, or replace the top half of the clip without prying off the bottom, depending on which part of the clip hinge breaks). If I could find these in metal that would be ideal, as they would never break. Unfortunately plastic is all I've found, so once a year one of them usually breaks and I have to fix it.
Before placing your clips on the MobilePro, carefully peel off the four grey rubber footpads from the MobilePro (slip an Exacto blade or jeweler's screwdriver under the pads and pry them off). Then use the alcohol wipes to clean off the unit before you put on the clips, as below (no need to be perfect, just get the alignment roughly similar to the picture).
Next,
stick the grey rubber footpads on the phone clips near their top edge,
after roughing up the clip surface with some light sandpaper and wiping
it down. Your MobilePro will now stand up nicely for touch typing on a
table when you aren't wearing it.
Those who don't care about aesthetics will now be able to clip a silver colored Tummy PC to their waist, and can use it blissfully unaware of the strange looks of passersby. Carry the extra battery in your pocket and you'll have power to spare.
3. Take the Unit to an Upholsterer to Cover the Top Half of Your MobilePro Case With Fabric
If you want to look unobtrusive, you'll probably want pay a local upholsterer to make a fabric cover for your Tummy PC that includes a pouch to store your extra battery.
You might also consider spray painting the silver sides of your MobilePro black, or taking it to an auto detailer who will do this for you for a small fee. If you are going to paint it yourself be sure to use masking tape on things you don't want painted.
Ask your local upholsterer or auto detailer to put some fabric (I use black nylon) on the MobilePro that covers the top of the case. See the right hand medical student picture above to see the solution I chose, which is a piece of fabric that wraps around the case cover and juts out a half inch above the screen at the top, so it covers the top of the unit when closed, protecting it from spills, etc.
I'd suggest your case cover include a pouch to hold your second battery. Make the pouch large enough to slide the second battery in and out easily. I have found the ideal dimensions for the cover are 9.5" wide by 6.5" high, and 7.75" wide by 3.375" high for the front pouch. Radius the bottom corners of the cover, but not the top. The cover will wrap around the front/top of the clamshell lid of your MobilePro, where the lid latch is located.
When the cover is made, your upholsterer will need to make a small hole in it for the cover latch. This is really the only tricky part. One way to do this is by adding some fresh whiteout to the cover latch, test wrapping the cover, and lifting it off. On the underside of the nylon you'll see the whiteout impression, which shows you where to cut an appropriate sized hole in the cover for the latch. Now glue your cover onto the MobilePro using something like 3M's Super 77 spray adhesive.
Congratulations! You now have a camouflaged Tummy PC. When closed, it will look and feel like a fanny pack, very unobtrusive. Unless you are petite, you'll find it easy to wear and use all day long with no fatigue or discomfort.