O’Neill Europe is the most consistent company when is comes to Wearable Electronic. Starting a few years back with the iPod Jacket named Hub has evolved and expanded to the h4 line for Autumn/Winter 2007/2008.
First a short look back to O’Neill’s evolutionary work in Wearable Electronic:
In 2004, O’Neill announced the world’s 1st mobile communications & entertainment snowboard jacket the Hub for the Autumn/Winter season 2004/2005.
The HUB mobile communications and entertainment Jacket featured a removable 128Mb MP3 player, Bluetooth that allows the wearer to make and receive calls from the cell telephone and the Eleksen fabric keyboard.
Sorry – no iPod at that time and the special very low spec MP3 player that O’Neill used was not such a good idea but they changed that in the next range.
A year later, O’Neill showed the second generation Wearable Electronic for the 2005/2006 season, the H2 line consisting of a new and now iPod ready Jacket and two Backpacks with iPod control and Bluetooth cell-phone communication system integrated. One of the Backpacks had also Solar cells on board to recharge the iPod on the go.
For the Autumn/Winter 2006/2007, O’Neill has launched for the third straight year a new and extended line of Wearable Electronic, the H3 range consisting of a communication jacket, the Campack backpack with iPod control, Bluetooth cell-phone function and added video functionality to the backpack. As new element, O’Neill also introduced the Fat Controller glove which let’s you control your iPod wirelessly from your glove.
O’Neill used in the H3 range the soft control elements from Fibretronic.
We are very curious how O’Neill’s ground-breaking fourth generation wearable electronics line, H4, will look and work. O’Neill has increased the range to seven pieces, including the new H4 Walkie-Talkie Jacket and the whole line should offer true wearable multimedia potential. H4 products will enable access to iPod, MP3 Players, headsets and camera equipment.
I think the new H4 range is a must have for the YouTube generation.
We will update you as soon as we get new product photos from the H4 range. Stay tuned and check back soon.
