TECH: Worst gear ideas of the week

We love gear and we're hungry for innovation, but amazingly some new gear ideas still manage to turn our stomachs. Here are the three worst to cross our boughs this week:

1) Electric tents
Tent firm Eureka! has launched three new tents (from $160) featuring built-in rechargeable power-packs. The batteries, which secure to the tent in a polypropylene case, take 12 hours plugged in at home to charge, and then kick out enough power to supply the tent's E! Power reading light for 9 hours. And this is better than a headtorch how?

More on the Eureka! N!Ergy range: click.


2) The ultimate breathable shirt?
Our wallets are always standing by for the next step in breathable gear technology, but this? Designed by an ex-Sony employee and on sale in Japan for $159, this air-conditioned shirt uses a fan to blows fresh air round your sweaty body. It's powered by 4 AA batteries, or (for the deskbound) a USB lead and is available here.





3) Weather-forecasting umbrella
Words fail us. This umbrella from Ambient Products is the ultimate in clever-stupid. Connected to a remote network via a transmitter in the handle, it downloads local weather reports from a central server and uses the information to turns the handle blue when rain it's about to rain.



Talk gear in the Trail Forums

Subscribe to Trail magazine