GymyGym Workout Chair:I have to admit it: this is a curiously sedentary piece of technology for a column purporting to cover travel and outdoors gadgetry. It's like the "Anti-Go Gadgets". Redeeming it are many favourite recurring themes. Starting with its head-scratching name. Why-oh-why?
Then, of course, there’s its whole raison d’être: which is as an office chair with gym equipment built in, so you can perform a workout at your desk. It’s been described as a cross between a bullworker and Herman Miller’s classic Aeron chair and is, in fact, well built with exoskeletal good looks, but featuring a bungee cord seating system rather than mesh.
The addition of a couple of extra bungees with various straps and handles – or, as they call them, exercise stations – multi-tasks this as a piece of gymware. There are four stations at the sides, back and bottom to give you a range of workout options for full body conditioning, from arms to calves.
Thing is, this all works so well that any decent session would leave you, let’s say “glistening”. Plus your co-workers might pull a funny muscle watching your efforts “aldesko” – but that’s just envy, don’t mind them. After all, who needs a gym with a GymyGym Gym?
Made from 95 per cent recycled materials.
* Cost$599 (€416), from gymygym.com
Angel Bike Helmet
This seems like a patently good idea. And not just because it’s got a halo. The Angel helmet has a couple of 0.5W LEDs that feed fibre optics around it, giving its wearer a 360-degree warning halo of illumination.
Cyclists are legally obliged to have working front and rear lights between dusk and dawn, though you wouldn’t always know it. However, in traffic, these may be obscured by cars, particularly when drivers come close enough to change your mind for you. This is where the Angel really could earn its wings, letting you be seen from all angles above the throng, much like the rear window-mounted brake lights on many cars.
Needless to say, the helmet itself meets EU standards, with a tough polycarbonate shell and adjustable straps. It recharges through a water-protected USB slot at the back.
Apparently 60 per cent of bike accidents happen after 4pm (in the UK at least), so anything that lengthens the odds of having a premature chat with the angels has to be good. Pity its pricing is quite so elevated though.
* Cost€60, from firebox.com
Isoki Change Mat Clutch
There are plenty of cool baby changing bags out there, including those from Aussie outfit, Isoki. However, even though this household has departed the industrial nappy phase for the pre-apocalyptic state exam one – now it’s the smell of fear – and I’m not a big clutch man myself, I have to admire the discrete bag engineering here.
Basically, this little baby – oh – opens out to a changing mat, with inner pouches for wipes, nappies, and there’s even a zipper pocket for creams or the other secret unguents of the nappied classes.
It’s not intended to replace the vast day-bag commodious enough for a fold-out playpen, blow-up crib and small nuclear nappy disposal unit, but is the perfect grab for a quick trip to the shops/coffee house/friend’s gaff. Think of it as a palaver reducer.
PVC-coated cotton in a range of patterns.
* Cost€30, from cleverclogs.ie