Challenge

We had worked with Kolon previously to design extreme climate survival gear for Arctic exploration. It was time to innovate again: this time, in a  new environment… mountaineering above the tree line.

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Insight

We discovered a phenomenon knows as ‘summit fever’, where mountaineers will ignore all warning signs, in an effort to finally reach the top of the mountain, often resulting in serious injury or death. We spoke to survival and rescue experts and identified the importance of moderating vital signs, being aware of both your environment and your climbing partner, at all times. These clear insights allowed us to develop applications of smart, wearable technologies to proactively prevent accidents.

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Outcome

We developed an interchangeable and modular range of bluetooth devices which could record windspeed, external temperature, core temperature, and moisture (all of which combine to advise on the risk of hypothermia) as well as, lighting communication and air quality monitoring. The risk of altitude sickness is high when above 5000m altitude, so the final ‘display’ module was a deliberately low-fi LED matrix to ensure climbers clearly understood the warnings and were able to optimise their performance. We built fully-working, pre-production prototypes in our onsite workshop. Working closely with Kolon’s garment designers, we developed quick-release mechanisms which would support the modules being attached to the jacket, whilst still retaining the important waterproof aspect to the outer shell.