Are you benchmarking against the Frio bag?
@Design_Tom_
Thanks for all the support guys!
Yeah I am aware of the Frio products and I think they are probably market leader in the category in most respects. From what I can tell their main disadvantages are that they get damp and are only usable in a ventilated environment (i.e not inside a bag). Their biggest advantages are short recharge time and really simplistic design and relatively long period of use (Website says 45 Hours but reviews say longer than that).
For cool bags in general I would say their biggest problems are having to freeze the cooling elements (so long recharge time) and lack of insulation means they don't have a long period of use (probably about 12 hours). Also the freezing elements take up a lot of space making the bags potentially quite bulky - especially once you factor in the padding to stop the ice packs coming into direct contact with the insulin and freezing it. By far their biggest advantage is their low price point and they can be stored in luggage. Also people seem to like that some of them come with straps to help secure insulin in place.
Overall I think there is room for improvement in producing an insulin storage product that can be kept anywhere (problem with Frio) and last for up to 3-4 days before requiring 'recharging' (problem with cool bags). Also I think more consideration could be put into combining storage of pens/insulin vials and other insulin related equipment; although 50% of people answered: "I like to separate my insulin and equipment".
From the replies I've got so far other features I could consider implementing are internal temperature monitor (seems very useful), alarm if temp gets too high and "Time lapse since insulin was last taken" (this could be possible).
I am just about to start concept development for this project so will try to keep you up to date and hopefully get some useful feedback on the product direction. If you have any opinions on my analysis of current products please let me know!
Thanks,
Tom