What if your shoes could tell you where to go if you ever got lost in an airport? these prototype Sneakairs from EasyJet are a pair of smart shoes that can help navigate you to where you need to.
Right now, the pinnacle of wearable electronics falls on smart glasses and smartwatches, both of which can only help so much when getting you to where you want. Smart shoes on the other hand, is a frontier that’s largely unexplored. Xiaomi did take their own stab at it last year, with sneakers embedded with sensors and phone connectivity but they generally just counted your steps.
How it works is the shoes are Bluetooth enabled and will connect to your smartphone. When you crank open a navigation app, small motors embedded in each shoe will vibrate to steer you the right way; your left shoe will buzz when you need to turn left and vice versa. It will also warn you when you’re heading off course or when you’ve arrived at your end point.
We’re not sure how accurate they are though, like if you were facing the wrong direction or trying to navigate indoors; especially when location tracking indoors tends to be kinda wonky. But it definitely seems like EasyJet is onto something as this would allow travellers to easily traverse without too much danger of getting lost.
EasyJet is still working on making the battery life go beyond three hours and researching into the development of an insole that can be placed in your existing shoes.
We personally think it’s a pretty cool piece of future tech, do you think this would prove useful to travellers if they become commercial? let us know in the comments.
