Keeping Warm with Japan Tech: Sanyo Eneloop Kairo

January 6th, 2010By Category: Uncategorized

With temperatures in Japan dipping toward 0 degrees Celsius in Tokyo all those minutes I spend out on train platforms really start to get me down.  Coming from a country with central heating and remote control starters for cars, I am more used to spending as little time as possible exposed to the elements during the cold winter months.

When I looked into how locals beat the chill I discovered quite a few techniques to keep warm.  I found a lot of interesting solutions including the use of disposable カイロ (kairo), small packets containing powder that heats up as a catalytic reaction when exposed to oxygen.  These packets are small, cheap and disposable.  Still I found them kind of dull.  After all, this is Japan, land of overengineered solutions to mundane problems! Enter Sanyo Eneloop to save the day.  The Eneleoop Kairo Rechargable Hand Warmer is more my speed.

Available in two designs and a variety of colors, the Eneloop Kairo uses rechargeable batteries to heat up a small handwarmer about the size of a pack of cigarettes.  Fully charged, the warmers reach around 40 Degrees Celcius and will operate for around two hours.  Of course the 3,000 yen price on these babies does bring the chill back into my spine. Still, I love Eneloop stuff and I have to think that using rechargeable batteries is better than filling the landfill up with weird chemicals, and two hours of heat is a lot longer than I get when I stuff cans of vending machine coffee into my pockets.

Author of this article

Steve Nagata

Related articles that may interest you

Comments

Top