THIS WEEK, we feature the gadgets that can help keep you cool as the temperature rises.
Teva IllumThese new Teva Illum sandals have me flip-flopping. One minute I think they're on the daft side of gadget; next, actually no, this is a cool idea. The idea in question being a bright LED on the strap at the front, like a little bike light – but for your feet. This is waterproof, like the rest of the shoe, and detachable.
Teva makes high-quality technical sandals, and isn’t one to miss a trick of tech-porn when it comes to describing its gear. So it’s a Pedlamp LED on the strap, which itself has a Trek Dry Microfibre Lining and boasts a Spider365 Rubber Outsole. Phew, don’t know about you, but it gets the geek in me going.
What it does all add up to is a really comfortable, well-made shoe which will let you spot those fiendishly jagged stones during a cool, late-night beach wander. Or as Teva themselves suggest, guide you on dawn patrol to catch the surf at first light. That’s first light other than your own “glow from below” of course. That’s its ad-line. Either way, you will see where you’re going and flip or flop, the Illum (Illi?) are definitely great fun for feet.
- Cost From $50 (€38) at tevaillum.com.
Sun Alert for iPhoneOh yes, there are apps for everything, even for one of our national pastimes, getting sunburnt. Or not, if you care to follow Sun Alert, which is perhaps the best of the current sun-app batch. It uses the iPhone's GPS to find your location or you can manually tell it where you are from an exhaustive list of an exhausting 192,000 destinations in 237 countries.
Then, using real-time data, Sun Alert works out the UV level where you are and, based on your immediate environment and nominated skin type, it calculates your recommended exposure time and the correct SPF (sun factor protection) to use. So there are the first two practical bits of advice for us to ignore.
Sun Alert has plenty of other eminently useful functions to fall on deaf ears. You can also set timer alerts to let you know when you should hit the shade (perhaps think of it as an excuse to crack open a chilled bottle) or to look at the predicted UV index changes throughout the day and plan the tan.
As a mass freckler myself, my own join-the-dots sun regime involves lathering factor 50 from head to toe and then lying under a shady rock. But in the perhaps unlikely event that you might want to bring some sensible science to your sunbathing, slap on the app.
CostLite version free, full version €0.79, from iPhone App Store.
Pocket MirrorNo self-respecting metrosexual (oxymoron, anyone?) would like to think that in the holiday heat of the moment he might be looking, well, hot. And not in a good way. Thanks to designer Pavel Sidorenko's cool little Pocket Mirror, he can check his quiff, make-up and audience as discreetly as he wishes. It's the size of a credit card to slot into a wallet, but with a little tab, so it be snapped out instantly for a bit of running maintenance.
The rather generically named Pocket Mirror is made of very forgiving, bendable plastic that can take the rigours of the male pocket without cracking.
Which may be more than will be said for your mates when you first produce it. However, it could also become the modern equivalent of the proffered cigarette light: so when the lady needs her compact and you whip out your Pocket Mirror with a chivalrous flourish, she’ll either be very impressed or a little concerned.
Pavel is offering a small discount for his Estonian fellow countrymen; the rest us can buy it for full price.
- Cost €5.50, from pavel-sidorenko.com.
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