Reflective Slap Bracelet

Equinox 2021 – Shorter Days are Coming

Where did the summer go? Tomorrow, September 22, 2021, is already equinox, the day when day and night are equally long. From there on, the days are rapidly getting shorter, making it harder to avoid being out in the dark. Last weekend, we had a furry visitor and we barely managed to take the post-dinner walk before it was pitch black. Just in the last week Chicago has lost 21 minutes of sunlight, 13 in the evening and 8 in the morning. Today, the sun rises at 6:37am and is gone again at 6:47pm. It’s hard to adjust your schedule when the light is changing that rapidly, even for us who are tracking it meticulously. Over the summer, we were a little lazy and did not always bring safety reflectors, but that has to change now. Equinox also means safety reflector season because who wants to get caught unseen in the dark? Better seen than sorry!

Safety reflectors are must-haves for dog walkers and dogs alike now when the nights will be longer than the days.

Is a reflective dog leash bright enough?

Using a reflective dog leash is great, but as you can see in the video above, the funflector safety reflectors are brighter. Of course, it depends on what quality and how much reflective material the leash has, so test yours so you know. The brighter the reflectors the further away the drivers can see you. This is particularly important along streets with faster traffic. Our leash might be bright enough on a residential street with very slow traffic, but for a highway, we need more reflective power. We like to hang one reflector in each end of the leash for extra safety.

Red and black ninja safety reflector by funflector
The reflector hanging on the dog leash in the video is a ninja. Available here.

The dog walker needs to be seen too! We have plenty of reflectors hanging on our jacket zipper pulls, but that is of little use when it’s too warm for jackets. So this time of year, reflective slap wraps are the most practical solution. They only take a second to slap on and are easy to wear for walkers, runner and bicyclists.

The funflector team

Equinox 2021 – Shorter Days are Coming Read More »

Celtic knots on St Patrick’s day ☘️

If you’ve ever been to Ireland, you can’t have escaped the ever-present Celtic knots. I’ve loved them ever since a trip to the Emerald Island in my moody teens. Looking around the cemeteries and admiring the intricate patterns on the gravestones everywhere. This early exposure to them has probably inspired me to create our Celtic gold reflective slap bracelet featuring Celtic knots.

Reflective slap bracelet / reflector band with a Celtic border in gold by funflector
Reflective slap bracelet with a Celtic border in gold.

What are Celtic Knots?

Celtic knots on St Patrick’s day ☘️ Read More »

Reflective Slap Bracelet with Nobel Prize Collection – Part 3

In anticipation for the announcements of the Nobel Prize 2017, we will finish up the stories behind the particles included in the Nobel Prize Collection  reflective slap bracelet. If you missed the beginning, go here for part 1.

Reflective slap bracelet with the Particle Zoo Nobel Prize collection of elementary particles.
Reflective slap bracelet with the Particle Zoo Nobel Prize collection of elementary particles.

1988 – The Muon Neutrino

Colleagues Leon M. Lederman, Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger shared the Nobel Prize “for the neutrino beam method and the demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino“. Neutrinos have no charge, very little mass and limited willingness to interact with and leave tracks in particle detectors. The research trio used a multistep process to produce a neutrino beam by creating showers of pi mesons from a proton beam and then let the mesons decay in layers of thick battleship steel. …

Reflective Slap Bracelet with Nobel Prize Collection – Part 3 Read More »

Reflective Slap Bracelet with Nobel Prize Collection – Part 2

For our fellow science nerds around the world, we teamed up with  The Particle Zoo and designed an ultra-reflective slap bracelet with elementary particles related to the Nobel Prize in physics. Order it in here webshop, or in our German webshop. In our previous blog post, we discussed the significance of the Photon (1921), the Neutron (1935) and the Electron magnetic moment (1955). That means we are up to the antiproton!

Two difference views of the reflective slap bracelet with the Particle Zoo Nobel Prize collection of elementary particles.
Two difference views of the reflective slap bracelet with the Particle Zoo Nobel Prize collection of elementary particles.

1959 – The Antiproton

Emilio Gino Segrè and Owen Chamberlain
“for their discovery of the antiproton”. An antiparticle is a “mirror image twin” of the particle and Paul Dirac’s theory predicted every particle has its antiparticle. The positron, the antiparticle of the electron, had been discovered in 1932 but the creation of the antiproton, required a more powerful machine followed by new techniques to detect and measure the result.  They announced the discovery of the antiproton in 1955. Read more here> and here>.

Reflective Slap Bracelet with Nobel Prize Collection – Part 2 Read More »

Reflective Slap Bracelet with Nobel Prize Collection

Celebrate groundbreaking research in high-energy physics with this collection of happy elementary particles from discoveries that brought home the Nobel Prize. In cooperation with the ParticleZoo, we have created a highly reflective slap bracelet (order it here) that doubles as a cheat sheet for Nobel Prize trivia while waiting for the 2017 Nobel Prize announcements.

Reflective slap bracelet with the Particle Zoo Nobel Prize collection of elementary particles.
Reflective slap bracelet with the Particle Zoo Nobel Prize collection of elementary particles.

The Particle Zoo Nobel Prize Collection

For the curious, the Nobel Prize website lists all awarded prizes and below are the first three selected for our reflective slap bracelet:

1921 – The Photon

Albert Einstein was awarded “for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect”.  Electromagnetic radiation, which is visible light, infrared, ultraviolet, radio waves, radar, x-rays, microwaves, etc. behaves both as a wave and a particle, the photon. When light (photons) hit a metal plate, they knock out electrons from their atoms. That is called the photoelectric effect and the emitted electrons are called photoelectrons.

Reflective Slap Bracelet with Nobel Prize Collection Read More »

Fall Safety

High viz without #highviz colors. #bicycle and #pedestrian #safety with #style because it's better to be seen than sorry! #reflectivegear

Reminders to move the clocks back were many when daylight saving time ended a couple of days ago. What few talked about is that we now have one more dark hour in the afternoon with higher risk for pedestrian and bicycle crashes. In Time, we can read “Adding an hour of sunlight in the evening year-round would save the lives of more than 170 US pedestrians annually, according to a 2004 study in Accident Analysis and Prevention.” Since that is not happening anytime soon, we all need to make sure we are visible in traffic, especially when it’s dark.

Fall Safety Read More »

What’s Your Story?

We love when our customers blow us away with unexpected designs! When we first offered promotional slap bracelets, we put the customer’s logo on, sent a proof and after going back and forth, we agreed on size and placement.  With the next customer, we wanted to eliminate the back and forth and sent them the template to fill with their own design and wonderful things started to happen. We certainly never expected storytelling taking place on a promotional slap bracelet but check out these designs!

Reflective slap bracelets for Hansa Coffee by funflector

Designer Keith Lilja made this intricate pattern for Hansa Coffee Roasters. Do you see the stylized H’s?

Without sacrificing their bold and clear style, the Bugle newspapers didn’t just print their logo but also …

What’s Your Story? Read More »

5 Things You Need to Know Before Buying Reflectors

Good reflectors have saved lives in the Scandinavian countries for decades. There are funflector® and other brand name as well as generic pedestrian reflectors on the market. What is the difference? And how do know if you are buying a “good” reflector or not?

Reflective slap bracelets in cheerful colors and designs
Reflective slap bracelets in cheerful colors and designs. How do you know if they are effective?

What do consumers, walking and running groups, PTA boards, corporate buyers and other organizations need to know before they buy safety reflectors?

If you want to make it easy for yourself, look for the mark EN13356, a European standard grown from research in the Scandinavian countries. It’s become the de-facto world standard for reflectors for non-professional use. Behind the fun designs, we take safety very seriously and you should too. Here are the most important things that you need to know:

1. Distance

The purpose of safety reflectors is to let drivers know that you are there so they can adjust their driving accordingly. …

5 Things You Need to Know Before Buying Reflectors Read More »

Chicago Symbols

We often surprise people when we tell them they can significantly increase their nighttime visibility without clumsy vests and high-viz colors. If you choose a funflector® safety reflector,  you can wear stylish designs ranging in colors from from subtle to bold and still increase visibility up to 500 feet. After hearing several independent stories from people whose friends have been hit by cars in Chicago at night, we decided to add the Chicago flag motif to our collection of funflector® slap wraps, our super reflective slap bracelets that can be worn on ankles and wrists by walkers, runners and bicyclists.

We are excited to announce a funflector® wrap with the popular Chicago flag design! It will be available in the  webstore on May 9th.

funflector® reflecive wrap - The Chicago flag carries a lot of symbolism
funflector® reflecive wrap – The Chicago flag carries a lot of symbolism

We can’t imagine any Chicago visitors going back home without having noticed the symbolic two blue stripes and four red stars waiving on flagpoles on every block in the windy city. The top blue stripe symbolizes …

Chicago Symbols Read More »

Beethoven was Right About Walking!

For a long time, we’ve been fascinated with creativity. What is it? How can we get better at “being creative”? How do we encourage and inspire others to explore their creativity – employees, kids and others? Is creativity something you are born with or can you learn it?

The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp
The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp

Beethoven was Right About Walking! Read More »

Scroll to Top