Easy Car SeatRenting a booster seat to use in your hire car can prove a headache, not to mention a wallet ache. So this looks like a welcome innovation. It's an inflatable booster seat designed for any standard three-point seatbelt. Deflated, it's flatly packable and Easy Car Seat suggests you might even tote it round in a handbag – in their dreams I'd say. But it will add virtually nothing to your luggage and can easily be stuffed into the glove compartment.
It’s ready with just a couple of puffs. Certainly many times easier than the lung-busting, life-sized dolphin you might have to take on at the swimming pool.
The Easy Car Seat isn’t a baby seat and can’t be used rear-facing, it’s for kids who are just that bit too small to travel safely in adult seatbelts. This booster is for your younger passengers who are less than 135cms tall (about 4ft 9in) and between 15kg and 35kg (that’s 33lbs to 79lbs).
Of course, the vital thing about any car seat is the colour. Okay, it’s the safety, and the Easy Car Seat conforms to both EU and US child restraint standards. It’s securely held in place by adjustable straps at the three key points and has a pressure release valve that both compensates for the size of the occupant – deflating for the bigger kids – and also crucially ensures the seat’s behaviour in the unpleasant event of an impact.
Oh, and it does come in a range of colours too.
Cost£57(€65.28), from easycarseat.com.
Reflective Biker Gloves and SocksThese do what they say on the label: they're reflective gloves and socks for bikers. A simple idea, but nicely executed by London design house, Suck UK. Hmmm, you'd think they're leaving themselves wide open there.
Basically, these are unisex, uni-size gloves and socks with reflective patches sewn on. It’s the detail that gives them extra charm. The glove patches have arrows, so your hand signals have a bit more emphasis (does depend on actually making a signal in the first place, of course). And the sock patches come into play when you tuck in your trousers or jeans.
Obviously these are only to supplement your own blinding array of lights and reflectors, but they do it with some style.
Cost£15 (€17.20), sold separately, from suck.uk.com.
Jambox Wireless SpeakersJawbone has been producing smart, hi-spec wireless headsets since 2006. Now it's brought its mobile Bluetooth and audio expertise, as well as its cool design aesthetic to bear on portable speakers with Jambox.
The size of a pound of butter, Jambox is, well, very tasty. For wireless sounds, it locks up with any Bluetooth-enabled MP3 player (or through a standard jack if needed for gaming, say) to produce real audio quality. This is thanks to its own proprietary drivers which crank up a serious 85dbs from a very compact box.
Jambox comes in four flat colours, each with a differently sculpted rubber casing. The innards are just as cutting-edge. On top of the stereo speakers, it has a built-in mic for use in conferencing set-ups or for Skyping, etc, with no cables, no jumble. And if you’re listening to music off your phone on the Jambox when it rings, it mutes the volume and lets you take the call hands-free, wires-free.
This is not a bargain basement solution for portable speakers, but it might just be the sweetest. And the punniest to boot.
Cost€199.99, from eu.jawbone.com.