Lately we've seen a rash of inflatable product and furniture designs, like the following:
ID Students Design Portable Inflatable Chair
An Inflatable, Floating Laptop/Camera Bag That Uses Air For Protection
A Portable, Inflatable Light Fixture for Camping
A Portable, Inflatable Adirondack Chair
Experimental Furniture Design: An Aluminum and PVC Inflatable Chair
For design entrepreneurs or design students seeking to explore this space: In addition to prototyping the object itself, you're also going to need some kind of pump for demonstrations. A company called Aerogogo specializes in producing diminutive and affordable battery-powered pumps that, despite their small size, can move a good amount of air.
Their $38 Giga Pump 4.0, for instance, weighs just 100g and measures 50 x 48 x 60.5mm (3.5 oz. and roughly 2" x 2" x 2 3/8"), yet can reportedly move 200L of air per minute for 15-25 minutes. It recharges via USB-C and comes with five different nozzles, to accommodate a variety of designs.
Some caveats: Aerogogo is not a company with a long reputation—the brand appears to be an overseas one that got their start on crowdfunding platforms—and the 4.0 is the company's latest design, with no user reviews available at press time. There are user reviews of earlier iterations of the pump on Amazon, so that'd be your best bet for determining the product's actual efficacy and reliability.
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