A revolutionary air-bag cycle helmet – and an A-star translator

This bionic cycle helmet is a real mind-blower

No one would have predicted in the 1960s, when cycling was all bicycle clips and wobbling country vicars, that by the insanely futuristic-sounding year of 2020, getting on your bike would be the coolest form of urban transport.Today, bicycles and ebikes, scooters, skateboards and even electric unicycles offer urbanites the win-win-win jackpot of exercise, affirmative environmental action and, often, getting to your destination faster than in old-fashioned cars. But there’s one drawback: it’s still awfully dangerous. 

Hövding, the Malmö-based makers of this remarkable cycle helmet (and yes, I know it doesn’t look at all like a helmet) claims that even in safety-first Sweden, where driving is pretty mannerly, a cyclist is 28 times more likely to die in a traffic accident than a car occupant. The Hövding 3 is one of the cleverest, albeit superficially bonkers-est, tech products I have seen. Worn around the neck, where it feels like a heavy but reasonably comfy scarf, it is an airbag that inflates in 0.1 seconds to protect your entire head and neck when its electronics detect specific types of fall. Hövding explains that not just any fall will trigger inflation. So if the airbag were to blow up in a situation where it’s not supposed to, the company would replace it.

The Hövding 3’s circuitry, which is doubled up to ensure it always works and monitors your head movements 200 times a second, is programmed to recognise every known type of head-injury-threatening tumble. Stunt people simulated 3,000 accidents to build up a disaster database, from hit by a car to getting a stick in a wheel to sliding on wet leaves. And if your accident isn’t a known one, but makes the airbag deploy, it uploads the data to the cloud for others to benefit.

Hövding 3 is the version finally deemed perfect and ready for release worldwide, though previous iterations have been in use in Europe and Japan since 2012. I find it impressive but also scary that, with almost 200,000 Hövdings in use, it has deployed so far in more than 4,000 registered accidents, and is likely to have prevented head injuries in a good proportion of those. So if you buy one and it saves your life – you’re very welcome. It is also portable enough to keep in a briefcase, which can’t be said of lesser helmets.

Hövding 3, £249, from hovding.com

A pocket translator that can patch in a professional

Regular readers will know that I am fascinated by electronic language translators and the strides they have taken in recent years. In the past year I have featured a few of the new breed of translator, which mostly come from China. Some have required internet connection but can handle basic business discussions by connecting to cloud services. Others have a remarkable onboard memory. All have an ergonomic advantage over just using Google Translate on your phone in that these dedicated devices are more appropriate to be handed from participant to participant in a meeting.

This, the One Mini, is the neatest yet – just 34g of quality aluminium and 10cm x 2cm x 1.3cm in size. It also has an interesting and unusual modus operandi. It works (online, not off) in 12 languages and, with its phone app to hand, will even provide surprisingly good live typed transcripts of the multilingual conversation in which you are engaged. For discussions of more complexity, you can patch in a professional translator at around $2 a minute.

 One Mini, $99, from transnone.com

The portable radio rides again

This unassuming box came as a surprise when I stumbled upon it by chance while looking at some £50,000 Harmon Kardon speakers (to be featured when they launch next year). Tuner is from the often underestimated audiosmith JBL, which looks like a mundane brand but, as part of the Samsung-owned Harmon Kardon portfolio of companies, is the real hifi deal.

Tuner is not hifi itself, but just a clever, small and quite unusual household and travel gadget you might find yourself using a lot more than you would expect. I did. Quite the dark horse, it is a rechargeable, highly portable Bluetooth stereo speaker that doubles as an FM and DAB radio – or, for me, more of an FM and DAB radio that doubles as a Bluetooth speaker. The thing is, dedicated portable radios, particularly of the FM variety, are not the commonest of things these day, yet they have distinct advantages. Not being dependent on WiFi or 4G like internet radio is just one. FM also sounds the best. That Tuner is also a decent wireless speaker is a bonus and a very handy one.

Dare I say “stocking filler”?

JBL Tuner, £90, from jbl.com

Amp up the audio on your phone

I often have news about digital-to-analogue converter (DAC)/headphone amp combos – little electronic boxes that magic up superior musical reproduction from average machines. I’m not saying that previous recommendations are now obsolete, but this little guy from California’s AudioQuest is the most magical yet. The the size of a fat USB stick, the DragonFly Cobalt makes music from your phone sound not just loud, but gloriously rich and natural. I’ve been playing tracks in Tidal’s top-level Master quality (which uses the superb new digital format MQA) through an iPhone and into quality headphones like Flare’s Pro 2HDs.

Connecting Cobalt is not un-Heath Robinson-esque if you’re out and about. You need a Lightning-to-USB dongle for iPhones. And, if you’re a sound nut like me, you’ll also want to add AudioQuest’s £36 JitterBug to join the contraption and remove another level of imperfection: jitter – not that I’m even sure I can hear it.

AudioQuest DragonFly Cobalt, £269, from audioquest.com

@thefuturecritic