NanoTips- Ingenious alternative to expensive touch-enabled gloves

Some parts of the world are still raging with the cold winter, and gloves or mittens are some things that you just cannot do without. What’s even more irritating is getting your uber cool touch-friendly Smartphone or tablet to work when you’ve donned warm winter gloves.

Of course, there are expensive touch-friendly gloves available in the market today, but that’s definitely not the best option. Canadian inventor Tony Yu has the perfect solution – Nanotips.

Nanotips is a less expensive alternative to buying pricey touch-enabled gloves. It is a conductive polyamide solution that can be applied to any surface to mimic the electrical conductivity of our skin. The project is up for crowd funding on Kickstarter and has already overshot its goal by more than you can imagine. With just around 10-12 days to go, the project has acquired over 1000 backers and collected more than $ 50,000 which is way more than its goal of $10,000.

“When I started actually riding, I ran into the inconvenience of always having to take off my gloves whenever I wanted to check the maps on my phone.” Said, Yu when asked how he came-up with this ingenious idea.

Most of the gloves that are designed for winter sports are ridiculously expensive and are not good with touch screens.

After experimenting with a wide variety of alternatives like sewing on a silver thread, ‘studs’, etc., He decided that a liquid solution was the perfect answer.

Nanotips as the name suggests uses nanotechnology to make the polyamide solution that can be applied to any glove. After combing the markets for suitable answers, Yu, created a formula with readily available components that he modified using special conductive nanotubes. His composition was formulated to last for long periods on the glove. Several tweaks and tests later Nanotips were born. Currently, he has come up with two versions of the solution – a blue and a black one. The Nanotips Blue is meant to be used on fabrics, and each bottle can give an average of 15 fingers. However, the solution dries to leave an 80% transparent-bluish residue which Yu is still working on minimize. The Nanotips Black is prescribed for leather, rubber and other thick materials. This solution becomes black after drying, but can treat up to 30 fingers. Both these solutions last for a few weeks to a few months.

The Nanotips black can also be used to make a stylus by coating a pen with the solution. It can also be used to create conductive circuits on paper and put several other creative uses.

Yu hopes Nanotips would be a great solution that is compatible with gadgets and makes life easier for gadget-lovers. He is working to create a more durable and transparent formula for fabrics so that people wouldn’t be restricted to the color gloves, they buy.