What used to be a day at the office is anything but. Today the demands of a connected world dictate the office be anywhere at any time and as such, people need easy ways of carrying their devices and powering them, too.
Enter the awkwardly titled PowearIN, a technical jacket that’s a device in and of itself. By considering all a connected user on the move needs, the company of the same name has created a jacket that stuffs more than forty separate features into its design. Its INbutton, sporting five buttons and rotary-styled operation, is central to what it can do and allows users to control four separate modes: a music mode, a lighting mode, a power mode, and a camera mode.
The jacket connects to smartphones and tablets using Bluetooth and controls their many functions using the INbutton, allowing for spontaneous photo ops in its camera mode, bright LED lighting from the button at night using its lighting mode, or separate allocation of power from its two built-in 5,000 mAh power banks to up to five separate devices. This comes in handy because the jacket features a bevy of pockets specifically for devices, a few of which even charge wirelessly or with charging cables hidden its sleeves or collar — all of which can be shared with others, as well.
With this many features, this jacket will catch attention, especially with its luminous, customizable name plate and thoughtful additions like a metro card pocket on its sleeve and an earphone splitter so that others can listen in on your music. Thought was put into the design, resulting in a load management system that eliminates the sagging feeling that would come with carrying these many devices. And when the temperature goes up unexpectedly, the entire jacket turns into a messenger bag! Versatility, indeed. The two versions of the jacket go from $339 and $469 respectively, slated for shipment in March 2016. The campaign is looking for $80,000 in funding by December 11th, 2015.
Baubax and perhaps even category pioneer ScotteVest have nothing on the PowerIN. While the former is focused on the traveler and features some charging features, the latter is a geek’s dream. It is well thought out to the point that it has an NFC chip in its name plate to allow for faster contact swapping and a magnetically enclosure running up the middle of the jacket for headphone’s wire. Details like this show how considered its design is and place it a cut above.