Adding audio control and cell phone navigation to gloves is not an entirely new idea, we have seen many concept designs and a few commercial ski gloves from various brands over the past few years doing that. Even gloves that make phone calls came along but none of these products made a real dent in the techno glove market.

Based on that precondition entrepreneur Willie Blount picked up the glove control idea, gave it a careful thought of what might have been the problem in the past and came up with a brilliant solution for the future: the BEARTek Bluetooth glove.

Recognizing the high cost of the electronic part in wearable electronics, a negative cost impact of a full integration of the electronic which might double the cost of a pair of gloves he designed a modular, exchangeable and upgradable solution.

BEARTek gloves themselves contain the switches, eTextile touch areas in fingers and thumb and a pocket that connects, holds and protects the expensive BlueTooth module.

The glove can be used without any electronic, just a cool designed glove or transformed into a smart glove by inserting the BT module.

Better yet, when the glove design goes out of fashion, change to a new pair of gloves, obviously from BEARTek, and connect again with your beloved electronic device. An additional benefit of such modular system: as technological developments advance faster than fashion trends, whenever there is a new wireless link available or new functions are the new ‘must haves’ just replace the module in the glove for an upgrade.

That all sounds cool but we are not there yet, BEARTek gloves are not yet ready for prime-time shopping – this project just passed the prototyping stage and is is now looking for funding to start up manufacturing. If you are interested and want to secure your first smart glove – now you have the possibility to make that happen and to get even your special design – depending on the amount of funding you provide.

Here is the link for more details about the BEARTek start-up project.

In case you wonder about the name BEARTek, it stands for: Bluetooth Enabled Audio Regulation Technology

While currently the main focus is on Audio and obviously cell phone control I can very well imagine such Bluethooth glove control could find a place among the professional, work wear sector where wearing gloves is standard procedure but still have the need to connect to electronic equipment.

Most of today’s smart devices are fitted with touch screens that only work when in direct contact with the skin as they need the skins conductivity.

Unless you are willing to take off your cozy warm gloves each time you get a phone call, check your email, change your playlist, get money via an ATM, fill up your car at the self-service gas station, you need to pay attention to what glove technology you wear.

Gloves that transfer the skin conductivity through the fabric to the touch screen are a must-have nowadays or face the cold reality to take off your gloves each time you face a touch screen.

smarTouch™ gloves, the latest addition in the growing touch screen compatible glove market, offer the magical touch needed to go through the frosty days ahead and stay connected with all the smart touch devices around.

Isotoner, the brand behind the smarTouch™ gloves send us a pair to check how well they can stay up to the cold challenge.

Visual inspection: the smarTouch™ gloves are made for subzero temperatures with an outer skin made from elastic honeycomb nylon making a snug fit around the hand.

The inside is lined with ultra soft plush material, very pleasant feel to the skin and capable to keep the fingers warm for a long time. The smarTouch™ gloves are crafted beautifully, suggesting they are made to last.

Now to the most important feature: thumb and index finger tips have embroidered areas made from electrically conductive thread connecting the skin, electrically, to the touch screen surface.

Sliding, tapping and texting on a touchscreen is a breeze even with this double layer gloves over the fingers. The large conductive areas ensure a continuous connection to the skin even when the gloves are not tight fit as I could find out when asking a friend with smaller hands to test.

Besides the smart touch capability, this gloves have another valuable feature: the palms and three fingers are imprinted with a silicon mesh, giving a very good grip for the precious device in hand.

You would be surprised how easily these shiny polished plastic, metal and glass devices slip trough the fingers stuffed in soft, warm gloves. Having gloves with anti-slip surfaces at the areas where these devices rest is a priceless feature in itself.

The test verdict: beautiful, city style gloves that face-off any touch screen coming along and best of all, for $30.- a pair they provide the best insurance we can get for all the precious devices we carry along all these cold days.

Watch out for our smarTouch™ gloves Giveaway, we have three pairs for talk2myShirt readers ready to be picked up.

With the begin of the cold season many users new to the world of touch screen cellphones, Music player and iPad style tablet devices might not be aware that operating this devices is not possible with gloved hands.

Taking a call or checking up some infos on the tablet means taking off the gloves, putting them somewhere and finally to what one wants to do. Sounds quite cumbersome.

First solutions to this usability dilemma surfaced around two years ago coming from the DIY community which added some stitches with conductive yarn on the index finger. This conductive yarn makes the necessary connection between the skin and the touch screen surface.

Last winter season first companies emerged offering touch screen enabling gloves by integrating electrically conductive dots or fabric patches at the finger tip.

The Fall/Winter season 2010/11 started and a next generation of touch screen compatible gloves come to the market that give back to the touch screen the natural bio-electricity of your skin while keeping your finger cozy warm.

Agloves, a US based company makes this miracle happen by knitting gloves with silver fiber yarn which transfers the natural bio-electricity of your skin to the touch screen. Agloves  gloves do not have the restriction of having just one or two fingertips touch screen friendly but all 10 fingers.

talk2myShirt got some gloves to test the performance and after ‘playing’ around for 3 days – they work like a charm. Not one single miss of scrolling, sliding, wiping and touching.

Not one single scratch on any of the devices my friend and I used extensively during that time. The silver fibers seems to be very fine but still get the skin conductivity transferred to the screens.

The gloves stretch nicely, snuggle around your hand with a comfortable feel. Yeah, I am living actually in a place with 365 days per year of hot summer weather so I made a trip to one of our shopping malls with an ice skating rink to get into the mood of glove testing and got the attention of curious onlookers turned into test participants from the ice skating community.

Agloves are available in Unisex style in various sizes and retail for $17.99 a highly recommended investment if you want to keep warm fingers and stay away from glove on-off-on scenarios during the next few month.

In agreement with the people who touched their devices with Agloves we give all 10 fingers up for this digital-age gloves because of their simplicity, flawless performance and sensible pricing – most likely the best investment among your touch screen device accessory portfolio.

Over the past two years we have posted about gloves with some kind of light integrated but almost all of them have been in the design concept phase or creative DIY folks hacked their pair of gloves and upgraded them with lights on the fingertips.

Other illuminated gloves types have been used as stage outfit, giving more shine to a performance.

Now finally a company has brought illuminated gloves down to the real world in form of work gloves. Everyone who does occasionally repairs on cars, bikes or around the house knows that during dark times a third hand is required to hold a flash light.

Either you have a third hand at your disposal and keep on instructing to hold the flash light please at the spot where you need to see or – you go and buy the  ‘Multi-Purpose Mechanics Gloves with LED Lights‘ from Go Gloves for $14.95.

A pleasantly low price for a pair of good quality work gloves with an LED for each which can be attached a four different positions on the glove. That gives enough options to have the light beam at the right spot.

One 2016 button cell battery for each glove will give light for around 14 hours.

I give an illuminated thumbs-up to this LED work gloves, practical and reasonable prices.

[via: Dvice]

High tech gloves have been around for some time now, starting with sophisticated heating systems, making phone calls via Bluetooth link to a cell phone or controlling an iPod.

Zanier, an Austrian based company has announced the most innovative and technically sophisticated glove on the planet, the X-Plore.XGX with integrated GPS and mini display on the thumb.

While I do not think the GPS will be very helpful of avoiding to get lost on the ski slopes I do like the additional functions GPS technology offers: the measurement of altitude, speed, distance, duration and other route data. All these data can be check on the small display but they are also stored and can be downloaded to a computer via USB.

This recording of the action makes it for me an perfect synergy of technology with clothing. No additional piece of gear is needed to fill up the pockets, just put on your gloves and you get a complete action recorder. And having already GPS on the finger tips – yes you can rest assured to never get lost anymore during your ski vacation.

Hardcore action winter sport enthusiast have now their own flight recorder in the gloves, recording those incredible races down the hills and can show them off on their social websites as proof of their high adrenalin vacation in the Alps.

Zanier plans to introduce the GPS gloves for the 2010-11 winter season. No price point is set yet but you have now 12 month time to save up for these top of the line gloves.

[source: ISPO media services]

Just in time at the eve of the iPad launch, new gloves technology could be seen on the MacWorld last week.

iTouch gloves are different to all the other touch screen compatible gloves we have seen so far. The iTouch leather gloves don’t have any style interrupting dots or conductive squares that make the fingertips conduct electricity between you and the iPhone and other touch scree devices.

iTouch gloves use a ‘patent-pending’ technology called TouchTec which begins during the leather tanning and stretching process and involves nanotechnology treatment while it’s being stretched giving the whole glove the skin to touch screen connection.

I am quite impressed how the garment industry catches up on a rather new technology like touch screens which have been around on a larger consumer products scale for a few years. In these few years they had to figure out the fundamentals and bring them to an industrial scale production. Really impressive and innovative.

iTouch gloves are available in different styles with prices varying between $99.- to $195.- When the iPad hits the stores your well protected hands will be ready for the big touch on the iPad.

[via: Ars Technica]

Many of my touch screen devices owning friends living in the colder parts of the world keep on complaining about their frustration of using their iPhone and others while wearing gloves.

Yes they know I am into clothing and bags with remote controls so their first stop is my inbox for getting tips what is out there and please …. don’t make me break my bank account.

OK – here is an alternative to the TouchTec gloves I have posted about last month which come in the range of $200.- and more.

Dots Gloves, one of the first companies offering touch screen gloves last year added new styles for this season retailing between $15.- to $25.- a pair.

Three finger tips are made of conductive yarn to make contact between the skin and the touch screen allowing next to simple swipes and taps the zooming and panning.

Some models are sold out already while others can be pre-ordered, let’s just hope Dots Gloves can deliver before the winter season is over.

Another low cost touch screen glove comes from Echo Design called the ‘echo touch gloves’ available in various colors and cost $30.- per pair.

Electrically conductive textile patches are on the thump and index finger tip allowing, next to tipping and swiping also zooming with two fingers on touch screens.

It’s kind of amazing how technology is driving (forward) nowadays how clothing has to work, function. Without these touch screen enabled gloves one is pretty left out in the cold if one likes to use the touch screen gadgets all year around.

This might look like a very basic, small step for technology enabled clothing but as technology advances, I am very sure more technology will (need to be) integrated into our clothing.

As most of the newer personal devices feature touch sensitive input usually via the screen, operating them during cold winter days can become an annoyance. Conventional, old tech gloves have to be taken off before one can even pick up a phone call.

See, electronic technology advances at a high speed but we or our clothing sometimes fall behind this rapid development and we are not able to operate them properly at times.

Touch sensitive gloves have been around for a year now as some innovative minds figured out the problem and a solution by adding conductive yarn patches on the tip of the index finger which will make the necessary skin resistance contact with the touch screens’ surface.

As with any new innovation and product idea, over time simple and limited offers on the market will expand through new companies joining the this market segment.

Gaspar Gloves is offering for this winter season a range of TouchTec® gloves which are based on a patented nano-technology that gives new functionality to a variety of textiles and leather. It enables the wearer of TouchTec Gloves to operate any touch screen devices without removing gloves.

The touch sensible gloves come in a range of different styles for women and men and can be picked up here with prices ranging from $225.- up to almost $300.- but how much value would you put on having warm fingers while operating your touch sensitive devices?

[via: ChipChick]

We haven’t covered smart, interactive gloves for a while but this doesn’t mean there are no new concepts and products surfacing on a regular basis. Judging on the latest releases, these gloves are getting smarter with each version.

The latest and most advanced smart glove is the AcceleGlove from AnthroTronix.

The AcceleGlove has an accelerometer in each finger allowing it to track any and every move your hand is making in the three dimensional space. The glove is connected via a USB cord to a computer which contains the software doing the heavy lifting in interpreting the 3D movement to control games, robotic hands or your word processing if you wish.

AnthroTronix is shipping with the AcceleGlove a disk containing the open source SDK that allows anyone writing software to control virtually anything.

One glove including the SDK and USB cable goes for $499.-, if you want to have a pair of gloves you need to shell out $998.-

Another smart glove is the Peregrine glove recently unveiled during the E3 and announced to be release in late fall 2009 at a $129.- price point.

The Peregrine is cheaper as it can not navigate our three dimensional world but it can recognize around 30 gestures (touching a finger to thumb, or finger to palm, for example), is connected via USB port to a computer to control it like a mouse just with a lot more hot-keys.

For some applications like gaming or in professional areas where hand input is helpful or for therapeutical applications during recovery of injuries, interactive, smart gloves do have a great value by improving performance, productivity and enjoyment.

Using smart, interactive gloves as input devices to control a cellphone or MP3 player or as text input …. I seriously question such products.

[Popular Science via OhGizmo!]

Hong Kong based Pensonic Technology has developed in close collaboration with the University of Nottingham and Hong Kong University a line of heated garments ranging from jackets and vests for street wear and motorcyclist,  gloves and more.

The uniqueness of Pensonic’s ‘Volcanic Heat range‘ is the use of recycled carbon fibers giving them a second life as high tech clothing. The recycled carbon fiber retain many of the superior heating and electrical properties of its virgin counterparts.

In addition to the use of the recycled carbon fiber for heating elements in clothing, Pensonic is using the same material for textile switches to control not only the heat elements but can also be used to remote-control portable devices like  iPod, GPS and similar products.

The advantage of carbon fiber based heating textiles is the ultra flexibility of the material making it virtually unbreakable and extremely light weight (same weight as conventional textiles).

Using carbon fiber heating elements and fully textile based switches allows the complete and seamless integration of the heating system where there is no need to take out anything other than the battery pack when washing one of these smart heating garments.

Pensinoc’s heated apparels have a thin layer of special nano-material coating which makes the garments waterproof, anti-odor, anti-bacterial and stain resistant.

A lot of know how and technology has been combined into this heart warming garments making you invincible against the harsh winter days.

Pensonic is offering their technology and products to retailers only. Let’s hope these smart heating garments with recycled carbon fibers will find their way to the shop floor in time for next winter season.