Luminous motorbike clothing for enhanced safety on the road

Motorbike clothing manufacturer Held is cooperating with Osram to improve visibility on the road by including a range of models in its current collection that can be retrofitted with LED light modules from Osram. This move allows greater visibility and enhanced safety for motorcyclists during the night hours and in foggy and similar conditions. "Integrating textile lighting in motorbike clothing offers a completely new way to enhance safety in road traffic. Together with Held, we have developed an effective solution especially for motorbike clothing," says Stefan Hofmann, Head of the Smart Textile Illumination business unit at Osram. Right on time for the motorbike season, Held is launching two motorbike jackets as well as a safety vest, which can be retrofitted simply by the motorcyclists themselves with actively illuminated light modules from Osram.

Passive protection in the form of reflector strips in clothing, for example, generally does not suffice on the roads during darkness and when visibility is poor. Jackets with integrated lighting, on the other hand, do not require incident light from vehicle headlights or street lamps, rather offer active protection.The Osram light modules, which are specially developed for two of Held's jackets and a safety vest, can be switched on easily before heading out on the motorbike by simply connecting a rechargeable battery pack. With no need for other manual settings, the light strips offer up to seven hours of active lighting in continuous operation (with a 4,000 mAh battery) with the LED light modules emitting white light at the front and red light at the back. The light modules can be integrated quickly and simply by the rider into the clothing through a fabric tube, and the battery charged with ease via a USB port.

Osram presented its light modules for textile lighting for the first time at the end of 2016, following a thorough endurance test under extreme conditions during an ice hockey game on Germany's tallest mountain. In the next step, Osram plans to combine light modules with sensor technology for example. This will in future allow various applications to be controlled using an app. Solutions that allow an emergency call to be triggered automatically in the event of an accident are also conceivable.

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