In this video, I bring you a little mod I have done combining the Kiwi design battery strap and their audio strap into one ultimate strap. You can currently buy the Kiwi design Battery Strap for $76.50 with a coupon directly from Kiwi design ➡️ and the Kiwi design Audio Strap for $67.99 with a coupon directly ➡️ .
So that’s a total cost of $144.49 directly from Kiwi design store or $169.98 from Amazon US.
This is a straightforward hack to do, that merges both of the Kiwi design’s flagship head straps – their battery strap and their audio strap (both of which I have reviewed here), into one ultimate strap combo. So you get great audio, some counterbalance, and a fairly large battery for extended playtime, all in one strap.
When I looked at both of the straps, the rear adjustment mechanism looked so identical that I thought it was worth exploring to see if these could be merged together. It’s a simple mod to do, and I’ll tell you how it’s done and what I think of it since I have had plenty of weeks using it.
The Method
So I first took apart the rear of the audio strap. We need the side rails of this strap as they are unique to attaching the side headphones to the strap. So we will fit these rails onto the battery strap.
To remove the rails and headphones, you first need to remove the rear padding part of the strap by pulling the rear padding out from its clips. Next, screw the adjustment dial to contract the arms into the rear of the strap. Then locate all the screws on the inside of the rear strap and pick out the rubber covers to reveal the small screws inside. I found a small screwdriver, a pin, a needle, or a picking tool were good at removing them. Whilst you do this, take note of which rubber plug goes into which hole, in case you want to put them back in again, because they are different sizes. There is a small number on the inside of them which might help here.
Unscrew each of the screws that are attaching the back piece together, and carefully open the cover. Take note of which side rail is stacked before the other as you’ll need to redo this same order on the battery strap. Remove these side rails from the strap and put all this to one side, because we now need to open up the battery strap.
Take the battery strap and carry out the same method of removing the back cover from the strap. Removing the rear pad, and the rubber covers and unscrewing the screws. The back piece will then be easy to open up and once open you can take the battery side rails away, we won’t be needing those anymore, then replace them with the audio strap side rails, placing the teeth over the centre cog wheel in the same way you found them on the audio strap.
Make special care that you have the rails and rear battery strap oriented the correct way around. The battery lights on the rear strap should be facing upwards and the headphones on the side rails should be pointing downwards. I made this mistake as I had the headphones removed, so keeping them attached makes it much easier. There are also letter labels on the inside of the headphones, side rail clips and the rear of the pad, which helps align the strap too.
Keeping these side rails and mechanism carefully together, carefully close the battery cover over the mechanism, clicking the edges in place. Now check each part to make sure all they are correctly oriented before you screw the part back together and replace the rubber covers. Then reattach the rear padding and attach the head strap back onto your Quest 2 headset.
And that’s it. You now have the ultimate Kiwi design battery and audio strap combo.
My Impressions
This combo adds great audio along with its 6400mAh battery and there’s a good level of counterbalance too. Comfort remains just the same with the thick foam top strap, and its thick rear padding and thanks to both straps’ good built quality and audio components everything remains solid and feels as if it is meant to be.
There is still the audio cable issue being loose and too short to completely tuck away behind facial interfaces or foam pads, and the power cable doesn’t get in the way. You might want to remove the battery straps cable clip if you want to position the headphones onto the side rails. But other than the same niggles as their original versions, everything works and feels very good.
With no additional components needed, the total cost of this mod is just the cost of purchasing both straps and the time to merge them together. You could then put the other parts together and sell on what is basically their original Elite strap.
Seeing how easy this mod is to do, I can see Kiwi design could easily release this strap combo in the near future, so if you think this mod is a little costly, or you don’t mind waiting, I am sure we will see Kiwi design released this ultimate battery and audio head strap combo sometime soon. If they do, I hope they look into the audio strap and possibly increase the battery capacity to around 10,000mAh to future-proof the strap against other brands that are now increasing capacity sizes.
I hope you have found this mod helpful. I hope to do another mod video in the new year about attaching these audio headphones onto the BOBOVR M2 Pro strap, so if you’re not subscribed please do, so you can check that video out on this channel when it goes live.
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 – Brief overview
0:58 – The Method
3:20 – My impressions
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