Travel Gear: crowd-tested wetsuits, a smart-ish pen and mobile scanning

The latest and best in travel accessories

Epson Portable Scanner, $180, epson.ie
Epson Portable Scanner, $180, epson.ie

Finisterre Wetsuit UK outdoors brand Finisterre took a crowd-testing and crowd-funding approach to developing its first cold-water wetsuit. With feedback from 300 surfers, who put prototypes through their paces, it slowly worked toward finessing its launch design, including more flexible neoprene to help pulling on and off, stronger zips and smoother stitching. Finisterre's 5mm hooded and 4mm nonhooded suits are now available for preorder online before be rolled out in retail. . From £360, see finisterreuk.com

Equil Smarten 2 If "i" was the overused prefix du jour a couple of years ago, it must surely now be "smart". Smartwatches, smartclothes, smartphones . . . And now the smartpen, although in fact it's been around for a bit. This is Equil's second version. And it is smart . . . ish.

Clip the sensor to the top of your page, write on it with the ink pen and your scribbles can be instantly synced by Bluetooth to appear on a phone or tablet, or stored for later uploading. It all comes in a triangular travel case-cum-charging dock. $200; see amazon.com

Equil Smarten 2, $200, amazon.com
Equil Smarten 2, $200, amazon.com
Finisterre Wetsuit, from £360, finisterreuk.com
Finisterre Wetsuit, from £360, finisterreuk.com

Epson Portable Scanner More technology to work on the move from Epson. The key feature of the WorkForce DS-40 Colour Scanner is the ability to work wirelessly and forward the scans directly to cloud applications like Dropbox or Evernote, without having to go through a laptop as you can preview them on your phone. It's powered by battery or USB, and has character recognition software if you're trying to import scanned text. $180; check epson.ie for its availability in Ireland

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@tomtomkelly