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Vay Technologies
Your smartphone can already control your lights, door locks, home heating-and-cooling system, speakers and more.
Now it can arrange for comfy feet, too. The uGale is an app-controlled insole designed to keep your feet cool, ventilated and odor-free, or to heat them when it’s cold out.
Vay Technologies
This isn’t the first smart shoe-accessory: Last September, Digitsole launched a successful Kickstarter campaign for smartphone-controlled heated insoles.
The uGale takes almost the opposite approach, aiming to prevent sweaty, stinky feet by way of microcompressed air directed at the typically inaccessible areas of the shoe. The idea, of course, is to lower the humidity in that super-snug bacteria breeding ground, thereby keeping your tootsies cool and your sweat at bay.
You can adjust the airflow by way of an Android or iOS app. And when the weather turns cold, the uGale can provide heat as well — up to 104 degrees (Fahrenheit) per foot.
Like any good insole, this one offers arch support and shock-absorption cushions near the heel and toes. What’s really cool is the way it charges: wirelessly, via an included induction mat. (Alas, it looks like you probably have to take the insoles out of the shoes first.)
Developer Vay Technologies just kicked off a uGale Kickstarter campaign, the goal of which is to raise about $40,000 (US). It has a long way to go, but also 43 days to get there.
The nearly gone Early Bird package nets you a pair of insoles and charging mat for about $218 (US). If you miss that option, the next level costs around $250. Either way, that’s a pretty expensive solution for keeping your feet cool — or warm. On the other hand, can you really put a price on foot comfort?
