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HatPegz offers a home to hang your hat

Sports fans are a little enthusiastic about their favorite teams. Okay, very enthusiastic. Most show their support through T-shirts, jackets, posters and hats. Now fans can show their love for their favorite team with HatPegz, team-themed pegs for your hats. These fashionable pegs come in five different colors for 22 different teams which are as follows: the Packers, Jets, Eagles, Colts, Giants, Lions, Bills, Seahawks, Broncos, Chargers, Bears, Cowboys, 49ers, Patriots, Chiefs, Redskins, Texans, Steelers, Saints, Ravens, Raiders, and Falcons. For $30, backers will receive four HatPegz in their choice of color and team logo. These pegs’ creators hope to raise $30,000 on Kickstarter.

Who knows what those sports fans do at home or how they store their hats? If they actually hang up their hats, what better way to do it than on HatPegz? It seems like regular hooks would be more convenient and cost-effective, however, for die hard sports nuts, HatPegz may be just the way to show their love for the game.

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Fitness Safety Tech Accessories

Jolt Sensor sits on your head, makes sure it stays there

The Premise. Head injuries and concussions are always serious and must be treated accordingly. Short of going to the hospital, however, it’s difficult to detect when a concussion has occurred. Athletes are especially susceptible to such dangers and need to be constantly monitored for safety.

The Product. The Jolt Sensor is a small device that lives on an athlete’s helmet, headband, or goggles. It’s white, discrete and hooks up via Bluetooth to smartphones. The Jolt Sensor is sensitive enough that it can detect when a concussion may have occurred based on the wearer’s head’s acceleration rate. When such an injury has been sustained, it sends a signal to a parent or coach altering them to the player’s condition. Jolt runs on a multi-week battery and can be recharged using a USB cord.

The Pitch. The campaign video goes through the dangers of head injury as well as the common occurrence of athlete’s getting back into the game too quickly after being hurt. One of the creators had one such injury wrestling and sustained brain damage due to improper care of his concussion. The rest of the campaign goes into specs of the Sensor as well as the manufacturing schedule for the product. Jolt Sensor is looking to raise $60,000 in a month on Kickstarter.

The Perks. Early birds can enjoy the Jolt Sensor for $80. At a regular rate, the Sensor will cost backers a $100 donation. Bigger tiers offer multi-packs of the product. Sensors are expected to be delivered in May 2015.

The Potential. Any way that athletes can be safer is always welcome. Many are pressured to push through their injuries in the name of the game, so it’s great that Jolt Sensor has found a way to support an athlete’s claim that they may be seriously hurt. The only apparent drawback of the Jolt Sensor is that, if fallen directly upon, it may break or push a dent into the wearer’s head. Still, the idea that concussions can be detected early and treated is a welcome concept for members of any sports team. 

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Apparel

Live Lids caps off your game with a screen to display logos

The Premise. Over the last 100 years, the baseball cap has become an icon. From its humble origins on the diamond to its current place in almost every facet of popular culture, its countless iterations have proven its staying power. Unlike most other classics that eventually adapt to a new era, there aren’t very many examples of a hi-tech baseball cap.

The Product. Live Lids is swinging for a home run with its modern take on the classic cap. Its version flaunts an embedded 2.8 inch LCD screen on the front panel. Although the screen can display any image, the company is banking on the wide variety of athletes and team logos available thanks to deals struck with the MLB, the NBA, and the NFL. These images can be downloaded online from Live Lids’ own Web site for a reasonable 69 cents each and synced to the cap the using CapSync software. The hat holds up to 100 images which can be displayed one at a time or as a slideshow for up to 11 hours on a full charge.

The underside of the brim looks more like the sides of an MP3 player, including a microUSB port for transferring and charging duties sit opposite controls to turn the product on or off, move to the next image, toggle hat modes, or explore files.

The Pitch. Live Lids’ campaign page is chock full of information, high quality photos modeling some of the many cap combinations, and a few videos. Understandably, the videos are all about the fashion appeal and show off the product’s LCD screen in all its slideshow glory. Live Lids is seeking an influx of $50,000 from the Kickstarter community to begin mass production.

The Perks. $75 nabs you a Live Lids cap while $99 gets you one with personalized stitching, which is at most $44 cheaper than the listed price on Live Lids’ Web site. Bigger pledges  offer you the opportunity to buy up to 10 Live Lids caps with a discount.

The Potential. Live Lids injects some modern flair into a sports staple, but perhaps not quite modern enough. Bluetooth support would allow updating the hat on the fly, which could be a great way to honor an athlete who just made a great play — that is, if you can see it. LCDs are notoriously tough to see in the kind of sunshine that ideally accompanies a baseball game. On the other hand, it could be distracting at indoor sports such as baseball and basketball.

While it’s great that Live Lids is seeking officially licensed logos and other graphics, community-generated content could also be fun to display. The product embodies some good ideas, but needs better connectivity and display technology.