Trusting your phone to navigate you through a heavily-populated city is something we’re sure many of us have done as we try our best to follow directions to get to our destination in a timely manner. But what if our clothing could be used to help direct us to our destination? That would help in cutting down how often we stare at our phones, and is exactly what the NAVIGATE jacket offers.
The NAVIGATE jacket uses a combination of LED guide lights and haptic feedback to help the wearer go in the direction they’re supposed to be traveling in. The jacket was designed for walking or biking around a city as it uses an accompanying smartphone application as its brain. The application transforms turn-by-turn navigational data into simple visual and haptic cues. LED lights built into the sleeves inform the wearer what step they’re on and how far they are until the next turn. When a turn needs to be made, vibrations will be felt in one of the sleeves to let the wearer know to turn in that direction.
There’s no pricing or availability mentioned on its website, but NAVIGATE’s designers, Wearable Experiments, may be planning to launch a campaign featuring the jacket in select European cities.