At first glance the very idea of a zipper that unzips and zips up by itself seems somewhat ridiculous. After all, these contraptions are mostly used on pieces of clothing and gear where handling a zipper isn’t really sped up by having an electric motor sluggishly move through the rows of interlocking teeth. Of course, that’s not the goal of YKK, which is the world’s largest manufacturer of zip fasteners. The demonstrated prototype (original PR in Japanese) shows this quite clearly, with a big tent and equally big zipper that you’d be hard pressed to zip up by hand.
The basic application is thus more in industrial applications and similar, with one of the videos, embedded below, showing a large ‘air tent’ being zipped up automatically after demonstrating why for a human worker this would be an arduous task. While this prototype appears to be externally powered, adding a battery or such could make it fully wireless and potentially a real timesaver when setting up large structures such as these. Assuming the battery isn’t flat, of course.
It might conceivably be possible to miniaturize this technology to the point where it’d ensure that no fly is ever left unzipped, and school kids can show off their new self-zipping jacket to their friends. This would of course have to come with serious safety considerations, as anyone who has ever had a bit of their flesh caught in a zipper can attest to.
https://www.theverge.com/news/656535/ykk-self-propelled-zipper-prototype
Ever heard of a road zipper? I wonder how many of these are fully-automated now and how many will become fully-automated in the next decade.
Miniaturized, could be a huge benefit for accessibility and independence purposes. Self-zipping clothing when mobility/dexterity isn’t
up to the task.
If only this could have come from Squirrel Nut Zippers. It’d be fast and swingin’,
but definitely not to use around the other nuts.
Well, at least the suits will be picking up the bill
HehehE! Franks and beans!
YKK is a zipper? I thought it was the airport in Toronto… (-;
YYZ!
“where it’d ensure that no fly is ever left unzipped”
Of course $POPULAR_CLOTHING_BRAND will make said zipper cloud enabled, eventually leading to hack where every-bodies fly/clothing comes undone at the same time. Or potentially worse, randomly zipping up when it detects the user in toilet mode. Maybe it’s best that somethings are not computer controlled.
“school kids can show off their new self-zipping jacket to their friends.”
Didn’t one of the back to the future movies have that.
I think they might be useful for things like self assembling space habitats and such.
Oh, ransomware… “To re-enable your zipper, please make bitcoin payment to the following account.”
I guess a zipper is not entirely airtight, but if you’ve got a constant source of pressure to keep adding air in as it leaks out… then this sort of self-zipping could let you build inflatable beam structures. This self-zipping means the zip can be fastened in utterly inaccessible places, so you could imagine a bunch of self-zippable tubes which would be inflated, the pushed a bit at their ground ends, then unzip parts of themselves in mid-air and rezip against other seams so as to assemble lattice, truss or similar structures.
It could definitely have some cool applications but it won’t be on clothing items. What will matter most is how well it can deal with incorrectly oriented materials that are to be zipped together. One thing is for sure, it’s a neat concept.
“After all, these contraptions are mostly used on pieces of clothing and gear where handling a zipper isn’t really sped up by having an electric motor sluggishly move through the rows of interlocking teeth. Of course, that’s not the goal of YKK”
Some female wardrobe has a zipper on the back and they may consider automatic zipper more than handy:)
And I will not be surprised if even regular wardrobe will come with them in following process:
– exclusive clothes endorsed by celebrities/influencers brands.
– regular cloths get the automated zipper to “unload this burden from your shoulders” (“are you tired with all those zippers on your clothes?”).
– almost no cloths comes with regular zippers and we the regular people spend too much time finding classic hoodie that can be opened and closed without smartphone because we haven’t noticed when the zipper became “smart” and now requires subscription, cloud based app and all your private data.
That’s what Velcro is for.
What? There’s no electric velcro to undo my clothes automatically?
Also, wetsuits. I wonder if Triathlon would ban them? It’s the kind of thing they would do.
I give it about 2 years after it enters the market before some gets killed in a self bondage scenario, as depicted in this video and image on twitter
[Ed Note: Sorry, keep it safe for work, please….]
Now I’m very curious about that video! (for technological reasons, obviously!)
Franks and beans!!!!!
Oh my…
First thought, this would make sense as something that you could temporarily attach to a zipper. Probably for things where it is hard to reach the entire zipper.
Second thought, in the industrial applications it’d be interesting to see metal zippers or zippers with built in contacts to power one of these.
I’m wondering how useful it might be as a temporary to permanent bond technique. Sections of e.g an inflatable tunnel are zipped together, with the closer also dispensing an adhesive that cures while the zipper prevents the pieces from separating.
The closer would be manually attached to one end of the zipper, then removed at the other end and taken to the next section.
okay, this is definitely very cool, but regarding the shown example video… isn’t is much easier to just zip the tent from the inside as that is the most logical thing to do and doesn’t require leaning over it. A solution looking for a problem?!?
But regarding the technology, this is really really cool.
I think the same, but then you realize that you would need a ladder, and position it two to three times to be able to fully zip everything. Instead, you just place this thing in the zip head, activate it, and it does it quickly. And even more: it seems that it’s not “a self-propelled-zipper”, but a little device that you mount in a zip, run it, and remove to be used in the next zip, which makes it even more inexpensive. Thus it really looks more like a tool for closing zips.
How long before an evil hacker subverts the zip on the target’s trousers, quickly unzipping them while simultaneously showing a pornographic picture on the target’s phone, and then once maximum turgidity is achieved, causes the zip to close suddenly trapping his set of gentleman’s accessories in the open air?
The target’s reaction to the excruciating agony being sure to draw the attention of all and sundry in the neighbourhood. At this point the hacker’s young sister who looks underage screams and points at the target. Mayhem ensues, target gets put on the naughty men’s register and never appears in public again.
All this to be done at the likes of an awards ceremony or similar public forum.
This technology should be banned immediately. It is obviously the work of misandrist female geniuses trying to subvert rampant masculinity.
On the other hand I can think of a few politicians who may benefit from YKK’s ingenuity… :)
(And if a nice chap like me can think of such a use, just imagine this technology in the hands of an evil overlord… )
lol. Funny how the theme/script of an “adult” rated horror movie pops up in more than one post. ;)
Glad to know I wasn’t the only one thinking of the potential outcomes.