Building a Better Headrest Mounting System

Necessity may be the mother of invention, but for Trumbull resident Douglas Collins, it was more the grind of his two-hour daily commute. 

Collins is the inventor of ViewSticks, a headrest mounting system that attaches to the back of the front seat headrests and turns the iPad, iPod or iPhone or any other similar device into an entertainment system for the car. It is designed to hold devices upright in front of the headrest for easy viewing.

ViewSticks is compact, easily installed and portable. The entire kit consists of two metal stands, four rubber bands and two suction cups contained in a storage bag which makes it easy to move from car to car or store in a glove compartment.

ViewSticks provide an adjustable shelf that allows different-sized devices to sit upon them, and are secured with bands to keep the device in place.

“Inspiration struck me while driving home from work one day,” said Collins, a director of sales for a manufacturing firm. “It’s a long drive most days and I am always coming up with crazy ideas, but this time I thought the idea really had merit.  After giving it some thought, I began to research what was out there and didn’t find anything like it on the market.”

Collins began experimenting to create a prototype. He started with the wire that the two stands are made of.

“I discovered that my first attempts to make the stands required a much heavier wire to make it stable,” he said. “I went through several iterations, testing suction cups and rubber bands to find exactly what I wanted.”

Though it took some trial and error and research, Collins not only found the exact components he was looking for, the ones he choose were all manufactured in the United States, something that was important to him.

ViewSticks went through several revisions in the early stages, “the final product looks pretty close to what I originally thought," Collins added.

ViewSticks currently has a patent pending. “There is nothing out there like it," he said. “Though some companies are starting to come out with a product, none of them are as universal as this. This is the only one that works with tablets of all kinds and their cases.”

And the reviews from both tech websites and bloggers and customers have been very favorable. His sales are 75 percent domestic but he has shipped his product as far away as New Zealand, Spain and Denmark.

Clients have touted the product as a great accessory gift for someone receiving an Ipad, its ease of use, portability and price. The ViewSticks sells for $19.95 plus shipping and handling.

“Anyone from your college student to your toddler can use this,” said Collins, “and they are cheap enough that you can have one or two in each of your cars.”

For Collins, this is not his first time as an inventor. “I develop products for my company,” he said, “but this is the first time I am doing it for myself, by myself. At some point you have to take action and throw some risk behind one of your ideas, so I did.”  

For more information or to purchase ViewSticks, visit their website at www.ViewSticks.com.