‘When you can make your jacket glow like a ball of kryptonite, you know there’s some bats#*t crazy tech going on.’
Gear manufacturer Vollebak adds to its cache of outside-the-box product design with a technical jacket that stores light and re-emits it at night.
Yep, this jacket glows in the dark.
Vollebak Solar Charged Jacket
The “Solar Charged” moniker is a bit of a misnomer. The jacket will absorb and store light from any source. As the brand notes, “You can see the instantly reactive fabric at work in as little as 2 seconds” by shining an iPhone light on any part of it.
Obviously, glow-in-the-dark isn’t new. You might have some glow-in-the-dark stars on your ceilings from the early 90s. But this is a unique application in a waterproof jacket.
To fully appreciate its phosphorescence, leave the coat outside (or inside) in sunlight. According to Vollebak, after “a couple of hours” in daylight, the jacket will glow for up to 12 hours at night.
The jacket uses transparent seam tape so that every part of the coat glows except a patch near the bottom and the waterproof zipper.
During the day, the coat is light grey. When fully charged, it glows green (530 nanometers on the light spectrum to be exact). As the night wears on, the brand claims the jacket fades to “silvery grey, then white.”
Technically, the Solar Charged Jacket uses a three-layer, waterproof stretch membrane. It weighs 230 grams, about 8 oz., so it’s not ultralight, but not very heavy. There are three eyelets under each arm for ventilation—not much, but the brand claims the fabric is “super breathable.”
It has drawstring cord along the waist and on the hood. A single rear pocket is big enough to hold a phone, keys, and ID/wallet. To see it in action—and relax to soothing nature sounds—check out this video:
Vollebak doesn’t say how the jacket glows, only that it is “engineered with a phosphorescent compound that rapidly absorbs and stores light.”
The Solar Charged Jacket costs $350.
