 Poster: A snowHead
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This winter will see more music on the mountains than ever before, but what are the essential - and not so essential - accessories for carrying your treasured little iPod with you?
Here's an interesting illustrated guide from Playlist Magazine, covering weatherproof cases, ear pods, speaker helmets, jackets, and - wait for it - the 'Voltaic Backpack' for guaranteed recharging on the move.
So, what are you buying yourself for Christmas?
Any comments, or other suggestions on this feature?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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i just came across this thread, sorry to re-awaken it, but had some practical experience with one a few weeks ago. a friend of mine decided that this year he'd win the "most tech'd up person on the mountain" award, and performed outstandingly. managing to secure himself a very hard to find O'Neill H2 backpack. basically he rang around everywhere, until he found a very nice guy in some store who persuded the manager of another store in the same chain to send him their only one.
for the uninitiated its a backpack, designed for heliskiing - so space for a shovel etc...
anyway, the most cool feature is the ipod controls on the straps of the backpack. play/ff/reverse/stop/volume up and down. it also gives you a headphone jack on one strap and a fully working microphone on the other (more on that later). it works with ipods that support the remote (so not the nano). so he had to buy an ipod (went with the 6 gig mini, as its got better battery life than the 4 gig one). the next coolest thing is the bluetooth modile that connects to it. so if you have a bluetooth enabled phone (and of course he does), you sync it with the backpack as a headset. this means when a call comes into your (well protected in the top of the backpack) phone, it automatically pauses your music and routes the call to your headphones and the microphone on the straps. you can answer with the "play" button and hangup with the "stop" button. no more fumbling for phones on the lifts...
finally, as if all that wasnt enough, theres solar panels on the back - so everything can be charged up while you are going along. the bluetooth module of the backpack itself needs charging - although it does take power from the solar panels if the weather is good enough, but we had bad weather and it lasted a fair few days.
all in all, it was a very nice idea. the solar panels really werent all that needed, i mean the cold does affect battery life, but all the battery running parts (phone, bluetooth module, ipod) were well insulated inside the backpack, which gets warmed from your bodyheat anyway. the cool factor does help though.
all the zips were very tough to open and close - proper waterproofing - and it was full of compartments that we were still finding 2 weeks into the trip. generally a great concept. not sure its worth the 160+ quid they want for it (bearing in mind you also have to buy an ipod...). but hopefully now its been done it wont take too long for people to start producing some cheaper, more viable versions.
http://h2.oneilleurope.com/h2series.html
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