Just in time before the opportunity is over, we give you a tip how you can be soon the owner of a very special high-tech Jacket.
Lodenfrey, a traditional clothing maker from Germany who entered the high-tech fashion recently, has introduced the io-Jacket during the CEBIT last month. 10 of those Jackets have been produced however only one is up for sale on eBay.
The proceeds of this auction that ends on April 23 @ 8:00pm CET goes to the ‘humans for humans’ foundation.
As of this writing, the offers stays at 2960.- Euro. Lodenfrey gives the production cost for this full features Jacket at 3.700.- Euro. That’s the production cost only, retail price would be even higher. So you are still in for a bargain if you want to be the number one in Wearable Electronic.
And you get an additional bonus if you are the proud owner of the io-Jacket: Vodafone is sponsoring the GPS locating and uploading service for 2 years – free. That alone would cost 981.60 Euro.
So, what’s now with the io-Jacket? It is based on Interactive-Wear’s ‘Know-where concept Jacket‘ with their integrated MP3 player and a Bluetooth mobile phone interface. Thats basically the ’standard’ configuration for a decent Wearable Electronic Jacket (and yes, we still don’t like the integrated MP3 player).
The additional bonus for the io-Jacket is the use of the GPSoverIP function from a German company with the same name. This technology is used to track the movement of trucks of transportation and delivery companies. The GPSoverIP has also the possibility to ’see’ inside buildings where normal GPS does not work. Pretty nice feature. With the service from Vodafone, the Jacket (wearer) can upload in realtime the data (position) and anyone knowing the website can follow in realtime the movement.
Some will cry: big brother, but there might be situation where such functions are very welcome, either for tracking someone for good reasons or you want to plot your adventure ride on Google earth. All this is possible once the data are collected.
The io-Jacket is a concept model with the difference that this one can be actually bought – permitting your bank account can cover it. It will take some time until this Jacket technology becomes mainstream and more affordable but nevertheless, we highly appreciate the efforts from Lodenfrey to explore new territory in the Wearable Electronic space.
And now head over to ebay and get bidding, not much time left. If you need a justification to join the bidding, it is for a good cause and only secondary a nice gadget for yourself.
