Navigate GPS jacket guides tourists around cities with vibrating sleeves

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Navigate GPS jacket guides tourists around cities with vibrating sleeves

Posted by travelling-blogger on Friday, November 7, 2014 Label:

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Wandering around foreign streets with your head buried in a map or eyes fixated on your phone could be a thing of the past with a GPS jacket that can guide you to your destination.

The new wearable technology - called Navigate - does all the navigating itself, and could prove useful for tourists who miss the sights by stopping to read a map or check their smartphone.

The jacket works by directing the wearer with subtle vibrations, indicating when they need to turn left or right to get to their desired destination.

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The frequency and intensity of each vibration changes based on the intended instruction: soft left, merge left and hard left each differ in body placement and intensity.

The Navigate frees up travellers' eyes, so their eyes can be focused ahead, taking in their surroundings as well as being aware.

Three cities have been programmed so far - Paris, New York and Sydney - with the French capital being its latest launch, with a blazer-style jacket comes in a red-black-grey combo.

Satnav jacket vibrates sleeves to tell you which way to turn

Three cities have been trialled so far, Paris, New York and Sydney

Wearable Experiments hope they have got the technology/fashion balance just right with their offerings

To create the jacket, electronic circuits with LEDs were sewn into the sleeves

Billie Whitehouse, co-founder of Wearable Experiments who are designing the jackets, said: 'Our quest to explore the human experience of travel has taken us all over the world, from Hong Kong to the Netherlands to our most recent trip to Paris.

HOW THE JACKET WORKS

The wearer programs their destination using a custom-made mapping app that connects wirelessly to the jacket.

As the wearer walks, drives or cycles, the LEDs in the jacket's sleeves light up to warn them they are approaching a turning.

Each sleeve is fitted with five lights and the number of lights decrease the closer they get to a turning.

When they need to make the turn, the sleeves 'tap' them on the shoulder.

If the turning is on the left, the left shoulder of the jacket vibrates to tell them to turn, and vice versa if the turning is on the right.

'In our travels, we kept asking ourselves how we can ease the stress of navigating an unfamiliar path without interfering with the experience of discovering a new place.

'These jackets give you the most authentic experience in your city of choice. No longer do you need to be hunched over a map or a smartphone. Now you can experience [travel] as a traveller rather than a tourist.'

The hardware for this is embedded in the jacket, and once synced with the Navigate App, and the destination is entered in, it will guide you through to your final destination.

The jackets are made to fit in with the current fashion trends, so you won't be left looking obvious as you power your way onward.

With the Navigate, haptic vibrations are built into a full physical language, allowing the technology to communicate critical information without interrupting your connection to what you see in front of you.

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