We weren’t expecting much on the day after Thanksgiving, but we found this morning a truly awesome idea: bicycle gloves with high-output LEDs that function as directional signals. Check this video:
[youtube www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJLzunjOpBU]
Zach Vorheis was a programmer for Google Earth who found his way into the fashion tech world and came up with this terrifically practical idea that increases bicyclist visibility and safety. There are LEDs on the back of the glove. To signal a turn, the rider closes a circuit by bringing his thumb to the outside of his index finger. To signal cars behind you, you hold up your hand as though you were using bike hand signals; to alert oncoming traffic, you put your hand on the top of your drop-down handlebar, with the back of your hand facing forward.
There’ll be a Kickstarter campaign starting December 9, and you can sign up at the company’s site to be updated. We’ll keep you posted, too.