Tag: gloves

Categories
Apparel Kids/Babies

MittGrips hold onto kids’ mittens, keeps their little wrists warm

Little kids love the winter. For them, it’s a time of sledding, snowman building and tubing. For parents, it’s usually a hassle trying to get kids all bundled up for the outdoors. Those little ones always seem to lose their mittens and risk getting frost bitten.

MittGrips are a solution to this problem. These mitten holders slip over mittens or gloves after they’ve been put on. There’s a thumb loop that keeps them secure. After putting them on, then goes the jacket. This way, kids can keep their mittens on while also having a layer of protection against the cold and snow.

While this is a fun project that will prove useful to all wintertime families, it’s so simple that a pair can actually be made from an old long-sleeve shirt. However, for those who aren’t as handy, one pair can be had for $10 CAD (~$8 USD) for estimated delivery in March. MittGrips is hoping to raise $18,000 CAD (~$14,900 USD) on Kickstarter.

Categories
Cell Phone Accessories Input

GoGlove comes in handy for controlling music via gestures

The devices in our life are so incredibly useful, but sometimes that utility can get in the way. Who hasn’t felt somewhat idiotic taking out their phone to do one thing and return it, only to realize within a few seconds that it needs to be fished out again for something else? Headphones with remote controls have alleviated some of that juggling we do but haven’t truly disconnected us from our touchscreen overlords.

The GoGlove wants to make it easier to handle your devices by allowing you to wirelessly initiate a wide variety of actions with just a few finger taps. To use it, a tap of your middle finger activates the gloves and awaits other taps. When input, these taps can do everything from raise the volume of your favorite tunes to begin a recording session on your GoPro, ensuring that you won’t have to stop running or dig deep in your pockets for your device. Each finger on the GoGlove is fully customizable to suit your needs with its iOS or Android companion app, and its Bluetooth LE connection allows for an estimated battery life of a few years of normal use. When weather makes the use of this glove impractical, its embedded remote can be removed for use as well.

The GoGlove will no doubt be useful, especially because it can easily be worn underneath another glove when it gets really frigid out. But the number of actions available looks fairly limited, but there is some work being done in that area so we can expect some more uses out of it. The GoGlove is going for $99, which is $30 off its eventual MSRP. For backers, $40,000 is the magic number that will get this product their hands by June 2015.

Categories
Fitness

RST training glove punches up hit accuracy, timing

The Premise. Muhammad Ali once said that he was so fast, he could flip the light switch in his room and be in bed before the room was dark. While maybe a little shy of the 300 million meters per second, he was still able to dodge 21 punches in 10 seconds.  The Greatest have been even greater, though,  had he access to the advanced training tools of today — including ones that are putting a digital twist on tried-and-true methods.

The Product: Reflex Strike Technology (RST) is the training glove from the future. Using adjustable lights, a built-in reflect stopwatch, punch counter, and successful strike beeps, the RST training gloves give realtime assessments to the trainer and allow the fighter to prepare for the spontaneity of a realistically unpredictable fight. With RST, fighters can practice with the same intensity of an actual fight, and have a distinct advantage over their opponent in terms of preparation.

The Pitch. The video shows the RST in action as a young boxer squares off with her trainer. From the video, the mitts look well-made, and it’s easy for the fighter to see the lights and throw the appropriate punch that the trainer dictates. RST creator Jermaine Simpkins goes into great depth about the RST in the written description on how he has combined his passion of teaching youth fighters with the technology of his product. He comes off as passionate and honest about all the RST’s strengths and downfalls, leaving the buyer no doubts about what they’re buying if the campaign can reach its $12,000 goal.

The Perks. The price is steep but the reasoning is honest. Simpkins explains that the gloves offer slightly more than the most expensive gloves on the market. Therefore, the fundamental gloves for beginners will cost $219 and the advanced version with punch count, reflex test, and training features costs $399. He expects the delivery of the fundamental gloves to arrive in February 2014, and the advanced pair to arrive in May.

The Potential. It’s great to see that Simpkins is passionate about evolving the resources that fighters have available, and it’s a good foundation for future improvement. However, Simpkins notes his product’s own downfalls such as durability and price. RST is an ambitious product, but the design needs to improve before it’s ready for  production. As the product is refined, it may be more valuable if it measures strength of impact as well.