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Impulse Jackets Put Your Signal Lights Up Where Drivers Can See Them

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Impulse Jackets have their own brake lights and turn signals that wirelessly connect to your existing lights
Impulse Jackets have their own brake lights and turn signals that wirelessly connect to your existing lights

Impulse Jackets will be introduced at the AIMExpo in Orlando, Florida next week, but Chris Esposito, co-founder of the start-up company, sent me some info and photos of their new jackets incorporating LED brake lights and turn signals that connect wirelessly to your bike’s existing lights.

After dark, extra visibility could be a very good thing
After dark, extra visibility could be a very good thing

After Chris had a close encounter with an SUV one foggy day, he figured getting your brake and turn signal indicators up high would be a great idea, but where do you put them? After a year of development they came up with these high quality jackets with everything built in.

We mentioned a similar idea here a few years ago when someone developed a LilyPad Arduino kit for putting big indicator lights into your jacket, but it was pretty basic, needed manual activation and you had to sew the lights in yourself. These jackets are much more high tech.

They will work with your lights whether you have standard bulbs or LEDs. The battery that powers the LEDs lasts for six days of normal use and can be recharged easily by just plugging the jacket into the charger.

We’re already seeing airbags incorporated into jackets, lights seem to be a natural addition. A lot of guys might hesitate to wear jackets with lights, thinking they would look pretty nerdy, but these look perfectly normal, the LED strips almost look like reflective tape. The jackets themselves are made by Syed Leathers in Orlando, a company with experience making leather racing suits so you could expect these jackets to deliver great visibility along with the protection of any high quality leather jacket.

Cool idea!

Link: Impulse Jackets

Video below:

A leather jacket with a bit of high tech safety built right in
A leather jacket with a bit of high tech safety built right in

Posted on Filed Under: Motorcycle Safety

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Comments

  1. This is another bad idea couched in good intentions, destined to lure in the same people who spend money on pulsing headlights, glo-in-thu-dark bikewear and reflective outerwear. Guys and Gals, here is the reality: The dope who cannot see a fully lit, noisy and law-abiding motorcyclist, will not see these ‘extra’ iights.

    • Granted there are a lot of dopes out there that wouldn’t see you if you were lit up like a Christmas tree, but you’re a lot less likely to get cut off or merged into when the turn signal is right in someone’s face. We’re also working on some new features that work off proximity detection. If you’re on a dark road at night and you brake down, it’d be nice to be lit up while you’re standing on the side of the road. And I don’t know about you, but I tend to notice when someone has pulsing headlights vs. standard.

    • Too many of the “I didn’t even know I hit him” (to quote the fellow who, a few weekends ago, hammered from behind a friend of mine who was wearing said DayGlo Grreeeeen jacket and helmet … and was towing a well lit, white trailer … and was doing perhaps 45 mph … but was still hit hard enough to send the bike and trailer combo 200 feet down the road past where he ended up) type fools who should not be even driving. This might help, but it’d help heaps more if folks would just hang up the damned cell phones, and family would get people like the guy who hit my buddy out of their cars.

    • Obviously a person who is not looking at all is not looking. But by your thinking we might as well do away with police/ambulance/fire lights, the third brake light now standard on cars, and additional side signals on cars.
      Better lit, is tester lit.

      • I like the idea of the lit jacket. What I see as potential failings have nothing to do with the product but rather with human nature.

        1) Government regulators have a bad habit of latching on to things like this and mandating regulations that require them. These invariably end up costing everyone an damaging the consumer and industry.
        2) Every single light that you add to a vehicle may cause you to assume that you are safer … but in the end they all just become part of the noise that drivers end up blocking out while they try to focus on other things.
        3) A perfect example is the “third” or high mounted brake light. The insurance industry lobbied for this arbitrary feature and the consumer ended up paying for it forever. After the initial novelty of seeing these lights was gone … nobody noticed them anymore. Further contrary to the industry analysis that was used to promote the mandate of these extra lights … there has been NO evidence to support their effectiveness. AND remember … we are all still paying for them.

  2. Distracted, careless and incompetent drivers are a fact of life. They seem to be multiplying faster than we can adapt, but hoping they will be removed from the road any time soon is wishful thinking.

    I’m not a fan of some safety products, the best example is the constantly flashing headlights that are really annoying when I approach from the opposite direction, especially on a bike with big lights like a Gold Wing, but something like this jacket seems to add extra visibility without being distracting on its own or looking bad when not lit up.

    Not everyone will want this, but some riders might want to consider it and add it to their safety arsenal. The best safety equipment is your own brain, but a little something extra might make a real difference.

    • Something is better than nothing my friends. Always; safety conscious when driving your MC. It’s your job to stay alive. I like the product and I look forward to it soon I hope.

    • Actually, we may be closer than you think to reducing the impact of distracted drivers. We’re still years away from fully autonomous cars, but the systems being introduced right now by Volvo, Mercedes, Nissan, and others can apply the brakes in emergency situations even if the driver does not notice to brake themselves.

      So maybe we should be less focused on making ourselves more visible to humans who will always try to pull the “I didn’t see you” excuse, and instead make ourselves more visible to the car’s own cameras.

  3. I think it is okay. I see no reason why it wouldn’t help visibility in certain circumstances.
    While nothing can protect you from a driver who simply isn’t paying attention, this might help with a borderline case who might not see you otherwise.

    It wouldn’t hurt anything to have it, and it might improve the odds.

  4. I can see this being particularly useful in dense urban traffic where a signal at eye level may be the only one visible to an adjacent motorist past whom I might want to merge.
    I frequently use hand signals in these instances and find 99% of the people will eagerly accommodate your movement through traffic once you have their attention.
    I hope to see this tech. applied to a wide variety of riding gear. It will not only make riding marginally safer but also smoother and easier in the aforementioned situations.
    Though I don’t employ the irritating pulsing lights I do keep my high beams on all day and at night I will dip them only once I’ve seen your lights clearly. I don’t care one bit what you think of me when I’m riding, just that you do.

  5. This is good. Anything that gets the driver’s attention away from that android sitting on the console and actually makes them look out the windows is a good thing. Better yet, enable the car’s computer to communicate with the phone device (thru an rf chip like the 486 that is probably already installed) and block its keyboard when it (the car) is in gear. Hell, even legislate it….then legalize marijuana to ballance things out.

    • All the lights in the world won’t guarantee you safety… but if one more light is just enough to catch someones eye, even if it’s not everyone’s eye, then how can you argue with that?

      Having brakes on your bike or tread on the tires won’t help you at all if a drunken idiot plows into you… yet we all know there are other circumstance where good brakes and good tread will save your life. It’s the same with lighting. We can say, sure, there are some circumstance where it won’t help. But that’s not the same as saying there are NO circumstance where it would help.

      • I think a self-install kit for existing jackets is a great idea and likely to be a bigger seller than the jackets with integrated lights. I spent a lot of time and effort a couple of years ago finding a jacket that met all my priorities for fit, comfort, protection and visibility; I’d be hesitant to retire my jacket just to get a new one with the integrated lights, and I’m betting a lot of others feel the same.

        Regarding the usefulness of the lights, naturally they will not be a miracle or cure-all, or lessen the burden and risk that we all shoulder when we swing a leg over and expose ourselves to the lowest common denominator of the driving population. At worst, however, they fall into the “can’t hurt” category, and at best they may make the difference between being seen and being run over. When I switched from a dark leather riding jacket to hi-vis green, I could not believe the difference in drivers’ reactions: there is no question that I am seen more often, and stand out more in traffic, in the neon green. Being able to add lights to this hi-vis jacket would make a good thing better, and IMO the brake lights would be especially useful, as I feel most at risk when stopped at a light or braking quickly in traffic.

        Chris, IMO you have a good idea here and I will watch with interest for the add-on lights.

  7. I am curious about how it works wirelessly. I didn’t see anything on their site except that it’s wireless. What has to be attached to the bike to make it wireless?

    • For bikes with 1157 standard bulbs, we offer a simple bulb replacement for the brake lights (attached to the bulb is a wireless transmitter). For bikes with different sized brake bulbs or LED brake lights (and for turn signal functionality), we include a simple snap-on splice kit that taps into your existing brake and turn signal wires.

  8. I like the high mounted, third brake lights on cars. It’s nice to be able to see that someone is on the brakes two or three cars ahead (looking through the cabins of the cars immediately to my front). I’d seriously consider jacket or helmet mounted brake and turn signals just for the sake of better signaling of intent with the people who are paying attention. I’d even consider static lighting (TRON-like, if you will) on the back of my jacket for night riding so that I don’t completely disappear in traffic. I’d rather not see any of those things legislated into ubiquity, though.

  9. Thanks for all the comments. I’d be very interested to hear others’ opinions on what a kit should look like. Removable vs. permanently sewn on, brake lights standard with turn signals as an option, etc. Hoping to have a kit prototype finished by the end of the week.

    Chris

    • How about Velcro so it could be transferred to another jacket? I’d be down for buying one kit, if it could be used with different jackets. Doubt the price would allow me to buy one for each of four jackets.

    • Unfortunately for these guys, another start-up already has this concept patented and their demo at Daytona was much nicer. Nicer jacket, blinding bright LEDs, an order of magnitude longer run time, etc. Can’t remember their name. Anyone at Daytona see them?

      The guy who was wearing it was two cars ahead of me on the road. I couldn’t see the brake lights on his Sportster, but I could see his jacket lights through both cars… kind of like the third brake light in this pic,..
      http://0.tqn.com/d/cartech/1/0/X/2/-/-/gps-traffic—robert-couse-baker.jpg

      Rear end collisions are the most common accident. Over half were “initiated by a vehicle two units back from the front-most impact”. The entire idea behind the third brake light was to reduce pile-ups on the highway by allowing you to see if the cars in front of the car in front of you was stopping quickly.

      • I’d be very interested to see who that was, as we are aware of similar patents for helmet devices, but after an extensive search involving a patent attorney I believe our product is unique. We also have a patent filed.

  11. I like this idea a lot!

    This could start the evolution of lighting moving away from the bike and onto the rider. Just think: An electric motorcycle could go from full race spec to DOT legal just by changing your leathers. Or just slapping the lights onto some velcro.

    On the other, uh, hand, there’s the issue of just how and where a pair of, um, yeah, headlights would go or what would, er, hold them steady…

  12. If car drivers and bike riders think that you are somehow safer because you have all these lights flashing on and off, it leads to changes in behaviour, usually for the worse. Plus once the novelty has worn off, it’ll be back to how it always has been.

    Remove all steering wheel air bags and replace it with a sharpened spike. Watch the attitude of driver change then.

  13. Like a kid’s toy steering wheel from the seventies – the kind that strapped to the back of mom’s seat and had a big bolt sticking out the middle where the horn should be?

  14. Velcro of New Hampshire has many grades of Velcro. I was using the ‘Industrial’ version but it wasn’t quite good enough. I called them and was directed to the ‘Extreme’ one. I had to order it though, none of the box stores carried it. It was available through an ACE hardware store.
    The next step was the type used to hold your Fast Pass to the windshield. There are many versions of hook and loop out there.
    I like the idea of “more is better”. Please keep us Dresser & Wing riders with tour packs in mind, they tend to block the rider from the rear.
    On two up situation can the drivers be turned off and let the passengers do the work? That would be where the movable units would be real helpful.

  15. The most common accidents are rear enders? Only in America, the rest of the world has a wider spread of accident causes. People turning right or left in front of you are the most common. I like the idea of a phone blocking signal when a car is in gear or the engine running. People on the phone is a major bete noir with me. Maybe a motion sensor in a phone for pedestrians would be useful as well, so you can only talk while standing still. So reducing the pedestrians ability to walk out in front of you without looking. Those once liberal live and let live French have gone all wimpish and decreed you are supposed have a hi-viz jacket on all the time. But of course being French they do not enforce the law. I remember when headlights which are on permanently on those super safe Swedish cars arrived and everyone said it would help visibility and reduce accidents. Now you have so much light around the front of cars – like Audi’s that any advantage is lost in the visual clutter. That rule applies with Hi-Viz jackets as well. If I wanted to commit a criminal act I would dress up in a hi-viz jacket a baseball cap, carry a tool bag and no one would take any notice of me.

    • The laws you recommend are on par with the ones you dislike.

      Rear accidents per motorist numbers are actually roughly equivalent everywhere in the Americas (not islands) and Europe… where such records are taken. There is notably more accidents per motorist outside of America, but that tends to be attributed to the lower quality road and signaling infrastructure. This of course decreases the percentage which are rear end collisions, but shouldn’t detract from the percentage per motorist.

      Regards.