Toronto inventor develops ‘smart’ gloves to keep hands warm during winter months

OTTAWA —
A young Toronto inventor has developed a line of “smart” gloves and socks that can keep us warm in the harshest Canadian winters.

Adrien Beyk created Quanta Vici, a line of gloves and socks that are connected to the user’s smartphone and can be electronically heated at the touch of a button.

Using what the company calls “smart sense apparel control,” the gloves can maintain the user’s preferred temperature for up to 6.5 hours, which they say is significantly longer than other heated gloves on the market. 

“I would say the biggest thing about this is that they’re smart,” Beyk told CTV News. “We actually spent three years working on this.”

Beyk, originally from Iran, came up with the idea while studying engineering at Ryerson University in Toronto and dealing with Canadian winters.

“It’s like a three-minute walk, but my hands and feet would freeze,” he said.

The gloves are also thin enough to play musical instruments, another advantage Beyk says his product has over some of the bulkier competitors.

To help get the project off the ground, Beyk turned to the crowdfunding sites IndieGoGo and Kickstarter, where he has been able to raise nearly $700,000 combined.

This isn’t Beyk’s only successful venture either. As a teenager, he developed a photo editing software called Pixel Degrees, which has been downloaded millions of times.

Beyk said it’s his passion for computer engineering and fashion that made him interested in starting Quanta Vici.

“This seemed like a great opportunity to mix creativity in fashion design, in hardware design, in software design,” he said.

The gloves are scheduled to be available in the New Year at an initial cost of around $250, though he expects the price to come down.