Patent Application
20120099299
Embodiments of the present disclosure relate generally to apparel, and in particular to providing a light-viewing portion on apparel to permit external viewing of an internal light source.
Apparel, particularly outerwear such as winter jackets and snow pants, may be a source of warmth in cold conditions. Some cold climate outerwear utilizes passive warming systems, such as insulation and/or a variety of materials and cuts. More recently, there is a movement toward including heat sources in outerwear. These are sometimes referred to as “active heating systems.” An active heating system may include a power supply, one or more heating elements strategically positioned on the outerwear, and controls to activate, control and/or deactivate the heating system. As winter outerwear can be bulky, it may be difficult to activate and deactivate the active heating system as well as readily identify if the system is active or inactive.
Embodiments will be readily understood by the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. Embodiments herein are illustrated by way of example and not by way of limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings.
In the following detailed description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings which form a part hereof, and in which are shown by way of illustration embodiments in which the disclosure may be practiced. It is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural or logical changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present disclosure. Therefore, the following detailed description is not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scopes of embodiments, in accordance with the present disclosure, are defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.
Various operations may be described as multiple discrete operations in turn, in a manner that may be helpful in understanding embodiments of the present disclosure; however, the order of description should not be construed to imply that these operations are order dependent.
The description may use perspective-based descriptions such as up/down, back/front, and top/bottom. Such descriptions are merely used to facilitate the discussion and are not intended to restrict the application of embodiments of the present disclosure.
The terms “coupled” and “connected,” along with their derivatives, may be used. It should be understood that these terms are not intended as synonyms for each other. Rather, in particular embodiments, “connected” may be used to indicate that two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact with each other. “Coupled” may mean that two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact. However, “coupled” may also mean that two or more elements are not in direct contact with each other, but yet still cooperate or interact with each other.
For the purposes of the description, a phrase in the form “A/B” or in the form “A and/or B” means (A), (B), or (A and B). For the purposes of the description, a phrase in the form “at least one of A, B, and C” means (A), (B), (C), (A and B), (A and C), (B and C), or (A, B and C). For the purposes of the description, a phrase in the form “(A)B” means (B) or (AB) that is, A is an optional element.
The description may use the phrases “in an embodiment,” or “in embodiments,” which may each refer to one or more of the same or different embodiments. Furthermore, the terms “comprising,” “including,” “having,” and the like, as used with respect to embodiments of the present disclosure, are synonymous.
Referring now to
As seen best in
In some embodiments, apertures 14 may be arranged in a pattern to form an overall shape. The pattern may be positioned on outerwear such as jacket 10 in a readily viewable location, such as the upper chest region as shown in
In various embodiments, individual apertures 14 making up the pattern may also be sized and/or shaped so as to allow a desired amount of light to be visible from each aperture 14. For example, in some embodiments, apertures 14 may be between 1 and 4 millimeters in diameter or width. In other embodiments, such as that shown in
In other embodiments, protective layer 20 may be coupled to an exterior surface of external layer 16, disposed about (covering) light-viewing portion 12. In various embodiments, protective layer 20 may be opaque or otherwise configured to allow passage of light. In some embodiments, protective layer 20 may be waterproof. In various embodiments, protective layer 20 may prevent or impede the passage of moisture but permit the passage of air (e.g., may be “breathable”).
In other embodiments, protective layer 20 may be absent.
In various embodiments, controls 24 may be provided to activate, control and/or deactivate light source 18. In various embodiments, such as that shown in
An example heating system 100 is depicted schematically in
For example, in various embodiments, light source 118 may include a light emitting diode (“LED”) that emits a different color depending on whether the heating system 100 is activated and at what temperature heating system 100 is set. In some embodiments, the LED may emit no light to indicate that heating system 100 is deactivated, a green light to indicate that heating system 100 is at a low temperature setting, a yellow light to indicate that heating system 100 is at a medium temperature setting, and/or a red light to indicate that heating system 100 is at a high temperature setting. A variety of light colors may be used to signify various states of operation of heat source 126, such as temperature output, whether heat source 126 is warming up/cooling down, whether a battery included in power source 128 is running low on stored energy, which individual heating elements of heat source 126 are active, and so forth.
Power supply 128 may provide power to heating system 110. Power supply 128 may include a variety of power sources, such as rechargeable and non-rechargeable batteries. In some embodiments where power supply 128 includes a rechargeable battery, energy collection mechanisms (not shown) such as solar panels may be provided to collect energy (e.g., from the sun) to recharge the battery.
Various techniques may be implemented to manufacture outerwear having light-viewing portions. A flowchart of an example method is shown in
Although certain embodiments have been illustrated and described herein, it will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that a wide variety of alternate and/or equivalent embodiments or implementations calculated to achieve the same purposes may be substituted for the embodiments shown and described without departing from the scope of the present disclosure. Those with skill in the art will readily appreciate that embodiments herein may be implemented in a very wide variety of ways. This application is intended to cover any adaptations or variations of the embodiments discussed herein. Therefore, it is manifestly intended that embodiments in accordance with the present disclosure be limited only by the claims and the equivalents thereof.
This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/405,087 entitled “APPAREL ILLUMINATION PORT APPARATUS AND METHOD,” filed Oct. 20, 2010, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61405087 | Oct 2010 | US |
