Combined Clothes Hanger and Radio
It's fairly common to use metal clothes hangers to extend the range of a radio's antenna. So John Jerome Spina had the idea of combining the radio and clothes hanger into one. The metal of the hanger would serve as the antenna. He was granted a patent for this invention in 1978.
I'm not sure he thought through what would then happen if you hung something on the hanger, such as a coat.
I'm not sure he thought through what would then happen if you hung something on the hanger, such as a coat.
Comments
I saw a prototype for a hanger that 'spoke' when you touched the garment (it was triggered by a change in capacitance). The idea was that whoever hung up the clothes could program what it should say, and a blind person could select what to wear without risking fashion mistakes (black shirt and red trousers, plaid shirt and striped shorts, flannel blouse and corduroy skirt, etc.).
The problems they had yet to work out were all the hangers would go off at once when you pushed the clothes apart, the cost, it turned five minutes of hanging up clothes into an hour-long tech adventure, and it was incredibly hard to hear with denim or flannel shirts.
I know that everybody who worked on it made a profit, but I wasn't surprised when nothing like it ever hit the market.
The problems they had yet to work out were all the hangers would go off at once when you pushed the clothes apart, the cost, it turned five minutes of hanging up clothes into an hour-long tech adventure, and it was incredibly hard to hear with denim or flannel shirts.
I know that everybody who worked on it made a profit, but I wasn't surprised when nothing like it ever hit the market.
Posted by Phideaux on 03/28/21 at 03:10 PM
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.
Category: Inventions | Patents | Radio | Technology | 1970s