DIY: It’s a kind of magic – Hacked gloves.

The weather has turned, and how. It’s bloody freezing all of a sudden. And I do not like the cold. I have poor circulation and always seem to feel the cold more than other people.

Another thing I do not like is having to take my gloves off to use my phone on a cold day. Pain in the ass. As I understand it a touchscreen works by responding to electrical impulses from our fingers. When you have gloves on obviously the electrical impulse can’t get to the screen.

Which is where conductive thread comes in. It kinda does what it says on the tin. It conducts the electrical impulses from your finger to the screen. I bought about 10 meters last winter but never did anything with it. I can’t find the website I bought it from but you can find it on Ebay.

It really as simple as putting a few stitches in the top of the glove, where your finger usually hits the screen. You just need to make sure that the tread hits your finger on the inside of the glove. I just tied the two ends of the thread together and left them inside the glove for extra conductive ‘contactyness’. I also put a few stitches in the thumb of the glove, as I find myself using my thumb too.

So no more cold fingers for me when I need to check my Twitter updates while waiting for the bus on the way home. And I am happy.