This LED face mask lets you customise your messages and light it up

Face masks are compulsory now and have crossed over from looking boring and unimpressive to the designer domain. Take for instance this cool LED face mask designed by fashion entrepreneur Chelsea Klukas of Lumen Couture. 

Klukas was planning to make some standard cloth face masks for her friends since the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people wear homemade face coverings to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus.

Lumen Couture has an entire line of tech-enabled fashion that includes dresses, hoodies, costumes etc and Klukas, when she shifted to making face masks, decided to add some tech to make them more fun.

Speaking to The Verge, Klukas said that she had components lying around so she put together a quick DIY YouTube tutorial on how to make these masks. The video went viral and there were people asking Klukas to make ready-to-wear masks.

Klukas’ LED face masks come with dual-layer cotton and mesh along with a chargeable LED Flex Panel. The panel can be removed to be sanitised and cleaned and the mask ships with a battery and the charging cord.

Klukas’ masks cost $95 ( ₹7,086 approx) and can be brought from the Lumen Couture site. The fashion designer added that she was not trying to make a profit out of the pandemic and that Lumen Couture would donate the proceeds makes from the sale of the masks through June, about $5,000 ( ₹3,72,962 approx), to the World Health Organisation’s Covid-19 relief fund.

These masks have drawn quite a diverse clientele than Klukas was expecting with more men being interested in it than women, she said. Klukas added that she thinks having masks with these LED components lets people own a statement wardrobe item.

The LED Display on the mask is a thin LED matrix screen that users can customise through an app. You can add drawings, text and even voice inputs. The fabric used to make the mask is breathable above and below the screen. 

The app that controls the panel has a microphone input and wearers can use it to display social distancing messages like - “Stand back” or “6 feet” - things that are hard to say right now with your mouths and noses covered.