These BearTek smart motorcycle gloves will allow you to operate your phone via Bluetooth and/or your GoPro camera via wifi by just pressing your thumb to your fingers.
Texan company Blue Infusion Technologies has been making their BearTek smart gloves for motorcycle riders, skiers and cyclists for some time, but have now updated the gloves with new features including a phone app that allows you to switch between phone and camera.
The original water-resistant BearTek gloves include Bluetooth and wifi modules so you can operate six functions on your Bluetooth device or camera simply by touching your left thumb to two points on each of the first three fingers.
It means you only have to take your hand momentarily off the handlebars – or not at all if you have long fingers – instead of reaching up to your helmet and blindly fiddling around trying to find the right buttons on your Bluetooth communicator or GoPro.
Like so many motorcycle gloves these days, they also have pads on the fingertips that will operate a touchscreen without having to take off your gloves.
The first BearTek glove divided the six functions between wifi and Bluetooth operation. With BearTek II you can switch between wifi and Bluetooth operation via an iOS/Android app, effectively doubling the number of functions for each.
Riders can also program each of the buttons to do what they want, not what the factory presets, and battery life is longer than the 80 hours of the original version.
BearTek II gloves can also vibrate to alert you to whatever you program them to, for example if a call comes in, or a calendar alert.
Blue Infusion went to Indiegogo crowd-funding site to fund the production of the BearTek II gloves and they have already reached their $40,000 target with a month to go.
The first version gloves are selling on Amazon for about $230 and BearTek II is expected to cost about $320.