The touchscreen-enabled glove was clearly a great invention. Having cold hands is a miserable experience, and for many of us, so is leaving our Snapchats unattended. As with many forms of clothing, however, gloves are becoming smart garments, capable of more than just being a layer of phone-compatible insulation — I’m thinking of products like GoGlove. This Kickstarter project senses hand signals, allowing you to control your phone while it stays in your pocket.
Primarily designed for music control, the GoGlove is the thickness of an inner glove so folks who like winter sports can put outer mitts over the top. In each thumb of the smart glove is a magnet, and in each finger is a sensor. When a thumb and a finger are tapped together, the sensor senses this movement and trigger a pre-determined function, like volume control or skipping a track. These instructions are passed to your phone via a small tag which clips on to your clothing like a pedometer, and which can act as a remote control itself. Impressively, the glove’s battery lasts for up to six months, so it should see you through a whole winter.
At present, the focus for GoGlove is definitely on the outdoor sports market, but that might change once the hardware is accompanied by an app, as is planned for iOS and Android. The app will allow you to assign each finger-tap to a specific feature — in native or third party apps — and the GoGlove team have already made it possible to control a GoPro from the glove.
At a standard retail price of $99, you’re going to need to live somewhere cold to make it worthwhile, but the quality and convenience of the tech is clear to see. At the time of writing, there are still some $79 pledges available which will get you the glove and remote, although supply of these is limited.
For more information on the GoGlove, visit the Kickstarter project page.