App helps users find and pair socks

Fed up with losing your socks or struggling to pair them together? One company may be able to solve these problems for you thanks to clever usage of on RFID chip and a mobile app.

By:AFP
| Updated on: Sep 27 2012, 13:35 IST

Fed up with losing your socks or struggling to pair them together? One company may be able to solve these problems for you thanks to clever usage of on RFID chip and a mobile app.

The company Blacksocks has created a system for tracking your socks among piles of laundry and pairing them together using a mobile application. The system works thanks to RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chips embedded in pairs of specially created Italian-made 'smart socks' known as Plus+, a specially created 'Sock Sorter' and a iPhone app.

When a user receives their Plus+ socks they first pair the socks together using the 'Sock Sorter;' afterwards the 'Sock Sorter' device can track the socks and allows the user to find them in a pile of laundry with ease.

The 'Sock Sorter' can them communicate with the iPhone to help users pair their socks together and provide information with details of their Plus+socks, such as the number of times they have been washed. The app also contains a 'Blackometer' which uses the iPhone's camera to measure how black, or how faded, the Smart Socks are, users can also use the app to order more Smart Socks from Blacksocks.

A starter kit of ten pairs of Plus + calf socks and a 'Sock Sorter' costs €159 and is available from http://www.blacksocks.com/, the application is free and can be downloaded from http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/blacksocks/id557838747?mt=8.

The application has been featured on tech sites including Mashable and Gizmodo where it has gained a lot of buzz.

Numerous other applications are available to help busy iPhone users organize their wardrobe such as Stylebook which lets users organize their wardrobe and create fashionable outfits, My Wardrobe, which helps users track which outfit they wore at which time to avoid repeating the same style; and Closet, which helps users plan outfits in advance.