4 clever ways to use an Adaptdefy underseat wheelchair bag

We designed the Adaptdefy Underseat Bag for rigid wheelchairs to use the empty space under your seat. That's how most people use it. But once it's on your chair every day, you and our customers start finding other ways to use it, and some of them surprised even us.

Here are four of my favourites. Two come from my own travels and two come from you, our customers.

1. Getting through airport security.

Airports are hard work in a chair. You're trying to push, hold your boarding pass and keep an eye on your stuff all at once. Then you get to security and have to get everything onto the belt.

On my last trip, I packed my flight essentials in the underseat bag: passport, charger, headphones, snacks. With the bag clipped under my seat and my hands free, I rolled through the terminal with no backpack pulling at my shoulders and nothing sliding off my lap.

At security, I reached down, undid the four corner buckles and lifted the bag onto the belt. It only took a few seconds.

On the other side, I grabbed it off the conveyor and used LapStacker to hold it on my lap so I could get out of the queue fast. Once I'd found a quiet spot, I clipped the bag back under my seat. The mounting straps never left my chair, so it went straight back where it belonged.

2. Turning it into a backpack.

This one wasn't planned. I figured it out at the gate.

When your chair gets gate-checked, everything attached to it goes too, unless you take it off. So I took LapStacker off my chair and put it in the underseat bag. Then I looked at the Velcro mounting straps and thought, "What if?" I Velcroed them together to make two loops, and I had a backpack.

Now I carry the whole thing on board: my flight essentials plus LapStacker, safe from the cargo hold.

A quick note: this is a hack, not something the bag was designed to do, and it only works on the rigid bag. It's great for a short trip from the gate to your seat. It's not meant to replace a proper backpack for a day's hike.

3. Swapping sizes for the day.

This one came from a customer, and it's so simple I'm kicking myself for not thinking of it first.

They noticed that the buckles work across all three sizes of the rigid bag. The mounting straps stay on their chair, so switching bags only takes four clicks.

Most days they roll with a Medium. For longer adventures, or days when they need more room for rain gear, extra shopping bags or a tool kit, they switch to the Large. For quick errands or around the house, they use the Small.

Their trick is to keep each bag packed and ready. On the way out, they grab the one that suits their day and clip it on. They don't have to repack or wonder what they've left behind.

Just check the sizing matrix on the product page first. Swapping sizes works best when your chair's width fits more than one size.

4. Carrying a laptop around campus.

This one came from a uni student who uses the Large bag. Their laptop fits, along with the charger, notebooks, snacks and everything else for a full day of lectures.

They told us two things that made it their go-to bag:

• Balance. Their campus is hilly and bumpy. A backpack on the back of the chair used to pull them around. The underseat bag sits low, close to their centre of gravity, so the weight doesn't throw off their balance.
• Security and access. With a backpack, their laptop was behind them where they couldn't keep an eye on it, and getting anything out meant twisting around. Now it's under the seat, out of the way and hard for anyone else to get to, and they can still reach down and grab what they need.

The Large bag fits laptops up to 15 inches, and the Medium fits tablets and compact laptops. The bag isn't padded, so use a laptop sleeve for extra protection.

Built by wheelchair users, for wheelchair users.

That's the best part of making gear for people who use it every day. You keep finding new ways to use it, and they keep teaching us. If you've found a clever use for your underseat bag, let us know. It might end up in the next article.

Want to know what else the bag can do? Read 10 reasons you need an Adaptdefy bag, or see the 6 upgrades we made from version 1. On a folding chair? There's a bag designed specifically for yours too.

Shop the Adaptdefy Underseat Bag for rigid wheelchairs

I'm a T10 complete paraplegic and I know not everyone has the function I do. Do your best with what you've got.

Happy Adaptdefying.
– Mike

About the author.
Mike Brown is a T10 complete paraplegic and co-founder of Adaptdefy. He has spent 14 years living, problem-solving and building as a wheelchair user, and every product Adaptdefy develops is shaped by that experience. Adaptdefy's mission is to solve everyday, real-world problems for wheelchair users and the adaptive community.