Google and Samsonite Make a ‘Smart Backpack’ with Touch Gestures, Notification Alerts

Oct. 11, 2020

Samsonite Konnect-i

The backpack, named Samsonite Konnect-i, is the fourth product that comes with Google’s Jacquard technology. And with this ‘smart fabric’ being integrated into the backpack,you will be able to initiate a few customized functions on your smartphone by using hand gestures.

The backpack supports 3 kinds of gestures:brush up,brush down, anddouble-tap. So, you can use the “Jacquard by Google” app to assign each of these gestures to trigger functions on your smartphone.

For instance, you can assign the “brush up” gesture to invoke Google Assistant. Now, whenever youbrush up the left strap of your backpack – over the assigned touch area, Google Assistant will be ready to take your questions.

Apart from triggering the shutter button of the camera and announcing the current time,you can also assign media controlsto the gestures. And with that, you can just brush up the strap to change songs or double-tap on it to play/ pause.

Now, you might be wondering how does the backpack recognize touch gestures? Well, the whole Jacquard system here is powered bya tiny black rechargeable tag-like device. It has an LED light and a vibration motor to alert users when a notification comes in and can be charged via a mini-USB port.

The idea here is to smartly connect parts of your attire to your electronic devices to form a cohesive ecosystem. So, with the Samsonite Konnect-i backpacker, you will be able to access some of the functions of your smartphone remotely when you are, say, walking around the city with your headphones on.

Now, coming to the physical build of the backpack, the Konnect-i backpacker comes in two variants –the Standard and the Slim. There are a lot of pockets and a padded laptop compartment in each of the variants.

There is only one major difference between these two editions: the “Slim” one comes with a vertical zipper and the “Standard” edition comes with a horizontal zipper on the front.

Now, if you are planning to get the Samsonite i-Konnect, then get ready toshed a modest $200 (~Rs. 14,684) for the Slim edition and $220 (~Rs 16,153) for the standard one. You can check out the backpacks on Samsonite’sofficial website.

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