Erogear will be exhibiting again this month at the SF Fashion+Tech's second STUDIO64 event! The event is happening Wednesday, May 15, 2013 from 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM at Temple nightclub in San Francisco.

Give Erogear a "Like" on Facebook and get a 20% discount on admission! Just send us a message after and we'll email you the discount code. That's a free drink, yay!

We're excited to announce our exhibition at [WearTechCon] this Friday, May 3 in San Francisco! This event will showcase Erogear's newest wearable video technology in taking fashion to a whole new level. Get your $10 ticket here:

http://wearabletechexpo050313.eventbrite.com/

Designers around the world have been hard at work experimenting with dynamic, organic aesthetics for some time now but their platforms have always been too bulky, unreliable or expensive. Erogear technology enables designers with a medium that can truly be used beyond the runway for the first time ever.

We're looking forward to letting you feel our fabric displays and sharing the details of our API with digital artists, fashion gurus and you this Friday. See you there!

Video Link: http://youtu.be/zVW2wNRep3Q

Video link here: www.creoagency.com/launch-festival-2013/#!/erogear/

But wait, there's more. Erogear received its first batch of production-worthy hardware today, based on their radically improved design. Updates will come through the blog as the team brings up the new devices, and user beta testing will be starting soon thereafter.

Video link: http://youtu.be/sTVIV09gJjo

"We're excited to be so close to releasing our new product here, and being the focus of several big-deal news providers goes to show how many real-world applications there are for this kind of thing," said Anders Nelson, Founder of Erogear.

LAUNCH provided a phenomenal growth in the number of newsletter subscribers and new opportunities for Erogear, all in preparation for the new product announcement coming in the next few weeks.

February 22, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - Anders Nelson, principal of Erogear will be participating at the Upverter + Y Combinator hardware hackathon this coming Saturday, February 23. The folks at Upverter have developed a novel, web-based platform for schematic capture and PCB layout that focuses on collaboration and instant synchronization between users. Y Combinator is an incubator that brings people from many different space together to form a viable whole. This event promises to be the perfect storm of interactivity, both for the participants and the devices they create. Anders' team will focus on building a platform for interactive fashion accessories, a passion of his since long ago.

The hackathon takes place at Y Combinator's offices located at Y Combinator, 320 Pioneer Way Mountain View, CA 94041. Come check it out!

Event link: http://upverter.com/hackathons/yc-hackathon-2013/

February 16, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - Erogear has signed up to attend at the 6th annual LAUNCH Festival in San Francsico. The LAUNCH 2.0 competition is for existing companies that are launching new products or significant new versions of an existing product. We will have several examples of our field-proven technology being worn about the space as well as showing off the alpha prototypes for our entirely new architecture. We will be presenting these in the Demo Pit where a grand jury will choose the company they think is best to present on the main stage.

You can find more details here: http://festival.launch.co/

So come join us anytime between March 4-6 from 9am to 6pm to be part of the epic awesome!

LED garments are taking the stage of fashion technology. These jackets, dresses, and other clothing items use LED light bulbs to electrically illuminate the garment, wowing spectators and creating a new meaning for the term “flashy” clothing.

Erogear, LLC is a company on the forefront of this technology, currently offering their services to create custom LED clothing for consumers. The garment is even further customizable after purchasing; the buyer can then use included Erogear software to upload their own images, or even video, onto their garment using SD or USB technology. Currently the displays boast “256 levels of grayscale” as well as “full motion video at 30+ frames per second” with new color capabilities coming soon. And for sports fans, Erogear has pre-made sports fanfare, offering a new way to flaunt your team’s colors.

Operating as a very flexible and consumer-based company, Erogear will even integrate their technology into one of your own garments (provided it’s an appropriate material such as leather or polyester). The displays can be plain video, or patterns synced with surrounding audio, and Erogear has even recently tackled a revolutionary heartbeat-sync which pulses the LED in time with the wearer’s heartbeat. Check out a video of one such dress named “Presence of Heart.”  

Is there a catch?

So what’s the catch? Well, one downside is a hefty price-tag. While the garments vary enormously in cost (the website depicts a range from several hundred to several thousand dollars depending on size and other factors), their popular front-and-back LED sweater sits around the $1000 range. Another aspect to take into consideration is safety. While injury from these garments is rare or absent altogether when worn correctly, let’s be clear: you’re still wearing an electrically-powered shirt with a battery inside. For this reason, prior to purchasing, Erogear requires the customer to sign a release of liability. This clears the company from any fault in the case of injury and wraps up other such legal matters with regards to gadget insurance.

Practicality

Legal stuff and costs aside for a moment, there’s also the question of plain practicality! While Erogear asserts that the clothing is very comfortable and flexible, there’s still the matter of a battery and small display mechanism within the garment. While the original displays can run for about 2-3 hours, the wearer can swap in a fresh battery or add on multiples for a longer battery-life (and a bulkier garment). But as most of the clothing options are jackets or outerwear, any discomfort is likely minimized. The brightness of the LED display is also adjustable, allowing the wearer to be a little more subtle (or less subtle!) when the scenario calls for it. With a maximum brightness that is “absurdly” powerful (as described by the developers), the display is still easily visible even in broad daylight.

While the garments can be especially eye-catching in a dark club or bar, the adjustable brightness also allows for a more delicate presentation. Co-founder Alana Yoel of the fashion company Agent of Presence noted this delicacy at the South by Southwest technology convention. She gushed that the LED-lit dress on display “was so subtle that the model was the center of attention without being a spectacle. I have never seen fashion technology blend so seamlessly in a public space.”

Fashion technology

The Erogear garments are winning praise in the world of fashion tech, but the company is also using their technology to make waves in other philanthropic areas. The clothing has been spotted at multiple fund-raisers, including one supporting Organs R Us (which provides organs for those on surgical waiting-lists for organs). The LED jackets at the fund raiser displayed messages such as information about the fund-raiser, as well as names of patients that would benefit from it. Erogear also used their shirts to spread awareness about the S.O.P.A. and P.I.P.A. bills of 2012, displaying the meaning of the acronyms and other facts about the bills directly on the shirt.

So what does the future hold for this fashion tech? For now, the steep price will likely keep these garments to a select few.  But as new and cheaper technology is developed, perhaps we’ll see more of these in the coming years. As many already use their clothing as a form of self-expression, it’s an enticing thought to have clothing with essentially unlimited expressive potential! Companies such as Erogear could be on the front lines of a technological leap that will take individualism to the next level. 

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Eve Parkes is a full-time feature writer with a specialty in travel and fashion, writing for numerous sites such as The Best Vintage Clothing, The French Bedroom Company and Spain Guides.

SF Fashion+Tech has been hard at work publishing video interviews from STUDIO64, and today is our day!

Watch Anders speak with Adelle about our platform and what the future holds for the world's first affordable, wearable video platform:

Link: http://www.sffashtech.com/2012/10/18/studio64-erogear-interview-with-anders-nelson/

THE RELAY, May 3, 2012 - Calistoga, CA – Thousands of runners took to the streets to support Organs R Us, an organization which helps to provide support for Americans that are on waiting lists for organs, and Erogear was on the scene. The race spanned 199 miles, starting in Calistoga and ending in beautiful Santa Cruz. Teams of runners took turns tackling the course one by one throughout the day. Erogear sent three custom vests along with team Genecor, to be worn as their runners charged towards the finish line. Each vest had unique video content; one unit displayed the Genecor logo, another had information about The Relay and the third vest displayed names of the kids whose lives would be positively affected by the fundraiser. Once again Erogear’s unique design was proven to hold up through the runners' paces, enlightening onlookers to who they are and what they stand for.

HARDWARE STARTUP SF MEETUP, April 26, 2012 – San Francisco, CA – Make Magazine sponsored the perfect MeetUp series for hardware junkies to share what they’ve been working on and swap ideas. At Jellyfish Art in San Francisco, the popular hobby magazine took the monthly meeting a step further by setting up a stage where informal pitches from hardwaraians in attendance could be heard. Some participants appealed for funding and all got constructive feedback on what they were doing. Erogear’s founder Anders Nelson took to the stage in the largest video garment produced to date, explaining the company's goals and fundamental design features. Afterward, Anders was inundated with application ideas by those in attendance, making clear that people had caught the Erogear fever. Check out the article below to see Anders “wow” the audience at the meet up!

http://blog.makezine.com/2012/04/28/video-from-sf-hardware-startup-meeting/

EDIT: Derp, the video is no longer available, but the article is still there. Guess we should update this more often? =] You can see Anders near the left side of the frame above.

Dear friends,

We are delighted to announce that Erogear will be exhibiting again this month at the SF Fashion+Tech event STUDIO64! The event is happening Wednesday, September 26, 2012 from 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM at Temple nightclub in San Francisco.

Hi again,

Just a reminder that Life 3.0 will be happening September 13th, 2012 at 6:00pm inside the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, CA. That's tomorrow!

The cool thing about Life 3.0 is that YOU vote for your favorite startup, and the top three winners get to pitch to investor-types! So please PLEASE come out and vote for us if you think we're neat. We think you are!

When you get to our booth you'll see:

-Video-enabled garments of various resolutions

-Wireless, real-time video streaming to the garments

-If all goes well, we hope to bring with us our prototype iOS app and the completely redesigned new LED panel

So click on the logo above or visit http://fundersandfounders.com/life-3-0/ to get tickets, they're not super expensive.

See you there!

Howdy all!

It's been a while since our last post but we want to invite you to Life 3.0, where Erogear will be exhibiting our latest and greatest wearable display technologies! The event will be happening September 13th, 2012 at 6:00pm inside the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, CA.

The cool thing about Life 3.0 is that YOU vote for your favorite startup, and the top three winners get to pitch to investor-types! So please PLEASE come out and vote for us if you think we're neat. We think you are!

When you get to our booth you'll see:

-Video-enabled garments of various resolutions

-Wireless, real-time video streaming to the garments

-If all goes well, we hope to bring with us our prototype iOS app and the completely redesigned new LED panel

So click on the logo above or visit http://fundersandfounders.com/life-3-0/ to get tickets, they're not super expensive.

See you there!

San Francisco, CA – F1W Industry Mixer (April 4, 2012) – Erogear turned heads at the first annual SF Fashion Film Festival industry mixer, organized by the SF Fashion+Tech group. Sporting one of Erogear’s innovative jackets featuring large video displays on both the front and back, founder Anders Nelson garnered attention from San Francisco’s premier tech-fashion community. Scores of attendees were drawn to Nelson, fully engaging with questions about how the garment worked and their own ideas for applications.

The attention Erogear received also helped showcase other attendees' inventions. A man who came to the party to launch a new mobile application that could capture time-lapse videos followed Nelson around with his iPhone and documented the way people were reacting to the jacket, plugging his own product in the midst of spectacle. Erogear technology proved to be just the right kind of attention getter for a memorable evening.

You can see the approximately 3 hour-long event condensed into three minutes below!

Link to video: http://youtu.be/-rBXpwSMCcc

Erogear levered upon its wearable display technology to illuminate a dress woven with Luminex (a fiber optic impregnated fabric) created by Alison Lewis of Agent of Presence. Luminex is a notoriously difficult material to get intense light from, but our custom LED driver design made bright work of it.

Our team of five averted every crisis that came our way, and tomorrow (derr, today I mean) you can see it first-hand:

http://schedule.sxsw.com/2012/events/event_IAP100180

Come on by if you're in the area, we'll have more details posted after the event!

Link if not present in the post body: http://youtu.be/6r1WId9SZKA

Source article from http://www.eddie.com/2012/01/19/the-internet-says-no-to-sopa-and-pipa/.

The active video content described what the SOPA/PIPA acronyms stood for, presented who was opposed to it, and showed who would be negatively affected. The high-impact graphic capabilities of the Erogear system made complex logos and text clear to the viewers. You can see the raw content here (front):

Link if not present in body: http://youtu.be/lYWO-lMrSAo

...and here (rear):

Link if not present in body: http://youtu.be/mr2HXVM7KZ4

We met a lot of great people fighting for their cause, next time we'll get there earlier because what was stated as lasting two hours was more like one hour, so we caught the tail-end of it (sans press).

Oh, and Happy holidays!

Scion iPAD Performance from Marco Tempest on Vimeo.

Then in San Diego he wore his killer outfit again with party-goers at Spin Nightclub:

We brought our own light show to the Playa in the form of wrist cuffs (a prototype design) and a running/cycling vest. It was amazing how useful they proved to be at night where they acted as head (and tail) lights while we zoomed around on our crappy, crappy bikes! Footage below is from a previous Girl Talk concert because our camera took a dump, but it's representative enough:

Just think what will happen once we get live video streaming going... Check out the latest pictures at http://www.facebook.com/erogear and the latest videos at http://www.youtube.com/erogear!

Be sure to visit our Facebook page for more photos and such at www.facebook.com/erogear.

A link to an article: http://www.aplusd.org/celebrate2012

A link to some YouTubery:

Phil and I attended the Baltimore Orioles vs. Oakland A's game at the Oakland Coliseum August 16, and talk about return on investment!

We sat right behind home plate and managed to get some jumbotron time which was awesome but what happened afterward was too good to be true. The umpire halted the game, pointed straight at us and asked us to dim our garments! Check out the footage from MLB.com:

I was wearing the amber-on-black jacket (in support of the Orioles) and Phil wore his green-on-white vest (in support of the A's). The fans booed the umpire in support of our LED-based team love, and even more support poured in via comments on the Yahoo! Sports article here:

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Lights-out-Ump-halts-game-instructs-fans-to-di;_ylt=AmlTBHnmcs90jytGGjyb.iERvLYF?urn=mlb-wp16203

Epic game, epic win! Just think of what we could do with five guys wearing video garments, all acting as one cohesive display? Stay tuned!

The display elements of Marco’s jacket contain a total of 2,048 LEDs that are full gray scale running at 30 frames per second. The EroGear controller can support higher frame rates and the content is read from a standard SD (secure digital) card allowing for any length of content.

Check out the video of his awesome performance below, and you can learn more about Marco Tempest and his performance at his web site.

For more information about our wearable display technology contact us as
info [at] erogear.com

When: August 26th, 2008 at 6:30pm
Where: NVISION conference in downtown San Jose, CA

You can get more details about the NVISION conference at their web site. You can also RSVP on our facebook page. We look forward to seeing you all!