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Wristband with retractable "glove"

Image credit: Washington Post

Spook Louw

Spook Louw Sep 20, 2021

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With the collective increased awareness of hygiene brought about by the covid pandemic, I believe there are still a number of opportunities to create products that can help people stay clean and healthy. One idea is to create a wristband that allows the wearer to handle objects without coming into direct contact with them.

The design should be simple enough. The wristband would act as storage for a thin piece of material that can be pulled out using a cap or ring for your finger. Once the material is out, it would be anchored to your finger, allowing you to handle objects with the material and when you are done, simply releasing your finger will allow the material to be contracted back into the wristband.

Essentially, it would simply be a cloth in a wristband, attached to a spring mechanism, that can be pulled out when needed.

Since carrying hankerchiefs is no longer fashionable, and gloves also aren't practical or fashionable all year, this could be a good way to ensure that you always have a piece of material with you. I imagine this product could work well for children, people who are very aware of hygiene or people who often come in contact with things they do not want to touch with their bare hands.

fashion hygiene product ideas

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Creative contributions

A cartridge containing multiple single-use, biodegradable sheets

Darko Savic

Darko Savic Sep 20, 2021

The wristband could be fed with cartridges, each containing 10 single-use sheets of biodegradable cloths that are discarded when you're done touching stuff.

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Spook Louw

Spook Louw3 years ago

After Manel Lladó Santaeularia's comment, I also considered single-use sheets, I just wonder if it would still make sense to wear them in a wristband as opposed to just carrying a pack of sheets in your pocket/bag. 

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Darko Savic

Darko Savic3 years ago

Spook Louw the wristband still helps you hold the cloth stretched over your hand until you tear it off at the seam. 

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Darko Savic

Darko Savic3 years ago

disinfectant-laced biodegradable, single-use gloves pulled from a cartridge in your pocket are a different product alltogether

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Water-tight wristband containing a sponge that is laced with disinfectant

Darko Savic

Darko Savic Sep 20, 2021

If the wristband contains a single, reusable cloth then make the container watertight and keep it wet from a disinfectant on the inside. That way you touch the stuff with a wet disinfected cloth. At the same time you disinfect all the surfaces that you touch:)

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Spook Louw

Spook Louw3 years ago

That's a great idea!

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Wristbands with retractable gloves (for warmth)

Michaela D

Michaela D Oct 01, 2021

For all people whose hands already feel uncomfortable just below 20C (they exist and I am one of them). Wristbands with retractable thin gloves (thick fabric would be harder to fit nicely in a wristband). The wristband would be part of the glove. They would keep our hands warm when it is not cold enough to wear thicker gloves. They would be retracted when we want to handle small things, when we risk making them dirty etc.

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General comments

Manel Lladó Santaeularia

Manel Lladó Santaeularia3 years ago

Hi, Spook Louw , really cool idea! I wonder what kind of material you're thinking about for the gloves. When thinking about health and hygiene, cloth doesn't strike me as the best choice, because it basically captures literally everything it touches. At the same time, if the application could be also for the cold weather, I could see it.

If we're talking about hygiene, latex or nitrile gloves occupy very little space, so it would definitely be feasible. However I wonder about the logistics of putting something on your hand through your wrist. Normally we put our hands inside the gloves and extend the glove until the wrist, and the fingertips act as "stops". In the system you propose, we would start from the wrist so I'm not sure how the "glove" would unfold to cover the whole hand. Can you elaborate on that? Or maybe someone else has an idea on how to do that?

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Spook Louw

Spook Louw3 years ago

Manel Lladó Santaeularia Hi Manel, thanks. I agree that cloth might not be the best option, I was simply thinking of something that would be washable for repeated use, but perhaps some kind of eco-friendly latex option would be better.

As for the design, what I had envisioned is a square piece of material that comes out of the wristband, attached to a type of anchor around the tip of your middle finger (like a cap or ring) to prevent it from being pulled back into the wristband while in use, so it would not really cover your hand like a glove (and won't be much help for temperature either), instead, it would simply provide a piece of material between your hand and whatever you are handling. 

That said, this is still a very basic concept and my design would not work for more intricate activities like typing where you would need full mobility of your fingers (what I had in mind was more for opening doors or picking up objects) so any improvement on that design would be welcome. 

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