Magic Shoes: Flaming Red Sneakers Are Lechal Navigation Shoes.

This brand of red sports shoes is called LeChal guided shoes. Besides the guiding function, it can also record the number of steps, the distance traveled and the energy consumed. LeChal is connected to the Smartphone Application through a removable Bluetooth receiver. It can guide the wearers to use Google (micro-blog) map to find the direction, and send the vibration signal to lead the wearer to turn left or right.

　　 LeChal The navigation shoes are developed by Crispin Lawrence (Krispian Lawrence) and Aniruch Sharma (Anirudh Sharma) of India Engineering Department, University of Michigan. They set up a technology company Ducere in a small apartment in 2011 under the assistance of angel investors. Now they have more than 50 employees. LeChal will be on sale in September.

Laurence said: "we think of this idea and realize that it may be very helpful for people with visual impairments. It works without any audio or distraction. It can completely liberate you, and you don't have to look down at your smartphone or anything else. binding 。 These shoes work by instinct. Imagine that if someone filmed your right shoulder, your body would turn right, that's how LeChal works. "

Smart shoes are usually targeted at specific groups of people, such as Alzheimer's patients and office workers who need to monitor their children's activities. These products are now in commercial use. But Laurence and Sharma believe that their products should first target the mass consumers, and focus on creating fashion navigation shoes instead of purely functional shoes.

Except for the red fire. Gym shoes Laurence and Sharma also developed an insole that allows users to apply navigation technology to other shoes. Laurence said: "early wearable devices look like glasses or watches, but now they are changing."

So far, Ducere has received 25 thousand orders, ranging from $100 to $150. Most orders are ordered through word of mouth or lechal website. Now, Laurence and Sharma are negotiating with retailers to store more LeChal navigation shoes in India and the United States before the holidays. According to the forecast, by April, the sales volume of LeChal is expected to exceed 100 thousand pairs. The origin of these shoes is in China.

Wearable technology is a fast growing global industry. Market research firm IDC4 released a forecast report that global wearable technology sales will increase by 2 times this year to 19 million. By 2018, sales will reach 111 million 900 thousand. But this has also increased people's concerns about privacy security, though Ducere claims that it will not record user data and introduce a more secure mechanism.

Ducere said it hoped that LeChal navigation shoes would be useful for visually impaired people. Experts from the L.V. Prasad ophthalmology Institute in Hyderabad, southern India, are testing the comfort of LeChal. Anthony Vipin Das said: "this is a perfect wearable technology product." Anthony Das said. You may forget to wear your seat belt or helmet, but you can't leave without shoes. LeChal solves the problem of azimuth and direction, and will become a very good assistant.

But LeChal also has many problems at present, such as short battery life and failure of Bluetooth connectivity. Das says these problems can be solved by providing Live Feed services to their wearers' friends or relatives. Ducere said they plan to use some of the future profits to subsidize the purchase of shoes for disabled users.

But compared to LeChal's high-tech functions, Laurence's favorite thing is that he is no longer worried about losing his cell phone. If the wearer is too far away from the cell phone, LeChal will issue a warning. Laurence said, "I am a very forgetful person. The best thing about shoes is that I don't have to worry about where to put my cell phone.