Safety Reflector

5 Things You Need to Know Before Buying Reflectors

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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 ReflectorsRead More »

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

Darker Days Ahead!

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Today, Sweden is closed. It’s Midsummer Eve and you will have trouble even finding a hotdog stand that is open. Celebrating the longest day of the year is an important business in a country where even the southernmost parts have 17 hour long nights in December. Watch “Midsummer for Dummies” if you don’t believe us:

The Swedish attitude about midsummer lives on in Minnesota, where we found this in a blog post by Paul Huttner “Sunday is a day many Minnesotans wait for all year. After the long dark winter, and generally stormy springs the sun reaches the highest point in the sky in Minnesota.”

On Sunday, June 21st, the north end of the earth axis is tilted towards the sun as far as it goes, which gives us long bright summer evenings.

Sun's angle in the summer by University of California Santa Barbara
Sun’s angle in the summer by University of California Santa Barbara

Unfortunately, that also means that the days will get shorter again, so watch out for dusk. Warm summer nights should be enjoyed outdoors, not in the ER because the driver didn’t see you. It’s better to be seen than sorry!

Check out our red, white and blue reflectors or 4th of July themed reflective slap bracelets for safe and fun summer nights!

Happy midsummer!

the funflector team

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Chicago Symbols

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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 SymbolsRead More »

Chicago Symbols Read More »

Let’s Do the Numbers

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How much do reflectors, like the funflector® ones, actually help? The sad truth is that there are no solid numbers available. As far as we know, no one is collecting data on whether or not pedestrians who were hit by cars in the dark, had reflectors or not. However, reflectors have been promoted in Sweden since the 70’s. Insurance companies have given away hundreds of thousands of them over the years, so one has to assume that they do some good and that the repeated giveaways are based on rational business decisions to improve their bottom line. What we have though, are some numbers that we can compare between Sweden and the US, one country where 30-50% of adults wear reflectors and one where very few do. In each country, infrastructure and culture is the same day and night. Sweden has better street lights, but they are rarely enough to make a significant difference to seeing pedestrians several hundred feet away.
tally marks by funflector
So, here are the numbers (pretty rough, but give the order of magnitude):  …

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Let’s Do the Numbers Read More »

Stocking Stuffers for Physicists

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This is a tricky one: Stocking stuffers for physicists and science buffs, especially those geared towards cosmology and subatomic (particle) physics. What do you do when your geek friends don’t want any more science kits and own all the cool/fun/silly T-shirts, tea mugs and mousepads from red bubble, cafepress or sazzle?

Particle Zoo funflector safety reflectors are ideal stocking stuffers for physicists, astronomers and cosmologists.
Particle Zoo funflector safety reflectors are ideal stocking stuffers for physicists, astronomers and cosmologists.

Particle Zoo Stocking Stuffers for Physicists

Fortunately, graphic designer Julie Peasley combined her interest for cosmology, the quantum world and theoretical physics with her design talent and created the line of Particle Zoo plushies. The felt creatures reflect the personalities of the various particles in a fun and educational way and are as much fun on the distinguished professor’s desk as in the class room. The Particle Zoo line has since expanded to magnets (who would not want to play with Feynman diagrams on their fridge door???), pencil pouches, buttons, greeting cards and reflectors! The reflectors, you can of course buy in the funflector webshop. They are perfect gifts and stocking stuffers for hard working students, grad students, engineers, teachers and professors who get home from work after sunset. For everything else, go to the Particle Zoo website.  Just don’t forget to say hi from the funflector team!

Pencil or makeup pouches from ParticleZoo, $15.
Pencil or makeup pouches from ParticleZoo, $15.

Relativity Watch

Although a bit over budget, we could not resist this cool Einstein Relativity Watch for $43 at 3B Scientific! What do you think, will those who use it be on time or not? And if so, where?

Tired of your friends being late? Give them an Einstein relativity watch and they might be on time - or not?
Tired of your friends being late? Give them an Einstein relativity watch and they might be on time – or not!

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A Colorful World Where “HOW” Matters

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We love colors and colorful reflectors are fun! So how do we make funflector® reflectors in all the colors of the rainbow when the 3M Scotchlite material only comes in clear (white), bright yellow and bright orange? (And the reason for that is that other colors result in material that does not reflect strongly enough to meet high standards).
funflector® reflectors are colorful because we  put colored material under the clear reflective layer, as most manufacturers of EN13356 compliant reflectors do.

funflector® reflectors are colorful because we vary the colored layer UNDER a clear layer of 3M Scotchlite.
funflector® reflectors are colorful because we vary the colored layer UNDER a clear layer of 3M Scotchlite. You can find the paw print reflectors here >

Some of our reflectors include a printed design and we also manufacture reflectors with custom logos and prints. There are different ways to do that and how it’s done matters to your safety. …

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A Colorful World Where “HOW” Matters Read More »

Why EN13356?

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Safety reflectors increase visibility at night, but are they doing enough to make drivers notice you? How do you know?

Look for the CE EN13356 mark when buying safety reflectors
Look for the CE EN13356 mark when buying reflectors

If you bought or received a funflector® reflector, you might have noticed the CE EN13356 marks on the labels. (The CE is a European mark for all types of consumer goods and should be followed with a more specific standard). Did you think you didn’t need to care since you are not in Europe?
…

Why EN13356?Read More »

Why EN13356? Read More »

2014 funflector® Wholesale Catalog!

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We are so excited that the 2014 funflector® wholesale catalog is off the press! We hope you are too! It has all our new (and old) designs and our first licensed line of reflectors from the Particle Zoo. New for this year is also an online flip book, (you just need a little bit of patience while it downloads) but we have stocked up with envelopes and stamps and will gladly mail a copy to your store! You can order it here or shoot us an email. funflector safety reflector catalog 2014

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The Higgs Boson

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Last December, the Nobel prize in physics was awarded to François Englert and Peter Higgs for the prediction of the Higgs boson. We are cheering on this big physics event by introducing our next funflector® from the Particle Zoo: The very happy Higgs Boson!

Higgs boson safety reflector by Particle Zoo and funflector
Higgs boson safety reflector by Particle Zoo and funflector


The existence of the Higgs field was predicted 50 years ago to provide an explanation for the origins of mass. It was hypothesized to fill space and interact with the most basic particles in a way that gives them mass when otherwise they would have none.
An invisible field that fills all of space might seem odd, but right now there is an invisible gravitational field keeping you from floating away. There is also an invisible electromagnetic field that keeps you from simply passing straight through the floor. Find a way to put some extra energy into a field and you can “shake loose” particles. We do that all the time with electromagnetic fields, for example in a light bulb. We call he result light and the particles that emerge are photons, bearers of light.

After years of trying, an international team of physicists managed to show that the Higgs field exists. Instead of turning on a light bulb and observing the light, they smashed protons together in the LHC at CERN and “shook loose” some of those long-sought Higgs particles, which were recorded by huge particle detectors to, after quite some work, be observed on computer screens.

We know of no better way to visualize the Higgs field than this beautiful animation by Nigel Holmes:

Congratulations to François Englert and Peter Higgs and to all our friends and former colleagues, who tirelessly have kept building and tweaking the LHC and the Atlas and CMS detectors, long after our careers headed elsewhere!

Dan & Elisabeth

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Early Dusk!

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Halloween is over, but it keeps getting darker later afternoons. Today, November 3rd, we’ll loose an hour at night after daylight saving time has ended.
Here is sunset for some cities across North America. If your place is not on the map, look it up here. Type in the closest big city and then click on the tab “Sun & Moon”! The chances are quite slim that you’ll be home before 5 pm every day, so pedestrian reflectors will come in handy when you walk to and from your car, bus, train, house, work etc. Be bright when it’s dark and you need to cross a street! Our web shop is filled with fun pedestrian reflectors for everyone in the family. Hang reflectors on baby’s stroller, on grandpa’s walker and on jackets and on bags, purses and backpacks for everyone else!

Sunset in major cities after daylight saving times starts on November 3, 2013
Sunset in major North American cities after daylight saving times starts on November 3, 2013


Here is the full list of sunset for November 3rd, 2013:
Boston 4:35 pm
Montréal 4:38 pm
Anchorage 4:41 pm
Chicago 4:42 pm
New York 4:50 pm
Portland 4:54 pm
Denver 4:55 pm
Los Angeles 4:58 pm
Minneapolis 4:58 pm
St. Louis 4:58 pm
Toronto 5:05 pm
Vancouver 5:05 pm
Washington 5:05 pm
Calgary 5:06 pm
San Francisco 5:09 pm
New Orleans 5:11 pm
Salt Lake City 5:21 pm
Dallas 5:34 pm
Phoenix 5:34 pm
Miami 5:38 pm
Atlanta 5:43 pm
Honolulu 5:54 pm

Early Dusk! Read More »

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