Skip to main content

Make your cycle shine with Volvo’s reflective LifePaint, finally selling online

VOLVO LIFE PAINT
Remember that awesome glow-in-the-dark spray that Volvo unveiled last year? Well, the company has just started selling it online for the first time.

Although invisible in daylight, LifePaint reflects brightly when caught in a car’s headlights, offering safety-conscious cyclists another way of standing out when they hit the streets at night.

Related Videos

You can apply it to a wide range of items beyond just biking gear and bicycle frames. Think shoes, bags, backpacks, and pushchairs. You could even spray it on your dog’s lead and collar.

Volvo partnered with Swedish startup Albedo100 to create LifePaint, which the company says works best on natural textiles and textiles with structure such as fleece, cotton, and wool. However, the effect is likely to be limited on shiny synthetic materials, and you’re strongly advised to keep it away from leather goods.

It retains its light-reflective properties for up to 10 days after application, and if you no longer want a particular garment to light up in the dark after spraying LifePaint on it a few days earlier, you can simply wash it off.

“By making cyclists increasingly visible, as well as increasing the safety capabilities of our cars, we are doing our utmost to protect everyone on the road,” Volvo’s Nick Connor said when LifePaint was unveiled, adding that every year more than 19,000 cyclists are injured on the U.K.’s roads.

Before now, limited supplies of LifePaint were available only at select Volvo dealers and six London bike shops, but for the first time the automaker has started selling it online for £13 a can. However, the hefty shipping cost pushes the final price to £20.

You’ll need a U.K. delivery address to receive LifePaint, but if you’re anywhere else, you can simply hit the site of the startup that created it and order a variant of it there. U.S. shoppers, for example, will find cans of “Invisible Bright” available for $13.99, plus shipping.

Editors' Recommendations

Check out the first-ever roller coaster on a cruise ship
check out the first ever roller coaster on a cruise ship bolt  mardi gras

Taking a roller-coaster ride right after a big lunch is always a brave move, with those endless twists and turns risking an unwelcome second look at your recently consumed meal.

Florida-based Carnival Cruise Line, however, clearly wants to push things to the limit, having built what it claims is the first-ever roller coaster on a cruise ship.

Read more
Bottle+ creates sparkling water on the go with the push of a button
Bottle+ mounted on docking station on marble counter.

A new Kickstarter project promises to keep your water bubbly for longer, while also cutting plastic waste from your daily beverage routine. Bottle+ incorporates a refillable CO2 canister in its base that can produce roughly 15 bottles of carbonated goodness before needing a top-up at its home docking station. A press of the button lets you carbonate to your preference.

Beyond the purported long-term environmental benefits of owning a Bottle+, the Swiss designers are making pledges at the production end, too. They say packaging will be recyclable and kept to a minimum. Factories will also be monitored to meet environmental regulations and social equity standards. To top it all off, Bottle+ has partnered with Cleanhub to collect 1 kilogram of plastic waste for every bottle sold.

Read more
GoSun’s new portable power stations use the sun’s ray to charge devices
gosun new portable power stations gets you through outages power550 hero

GoSun's diverse lineup of solar-friendly products is expanding this week with two new portable power stations. The GoSun Power 550 and Power 1,100 are high-capacity batteries designed to help keep your appliances running when off the grid, whether that's due to an outage or being on a camping trip. Much like its other eco-friendly devices, these portable power stations can be charged using solar panels.

These portable power stations have plenty of power output options, including a 600-watt AC, a 1,000W AC, USB-A with QuickCharge 3.0, two 5V 2.4A USB-A plugs, a 60W USB-C plug, and a 12.3V DC. For charging, they use a 12-24V adapter, 18-24V input for solar, or 12V if you're charging it from the car.  Both AC outlets are pure sine wave, meaning your electronics get a more consistent feed of power. That's good news for your phones and laptops. It also has a Maximum Power Point Controller (MPPT) built-in, which helps to optimize the gain from solar panels. Other batteries lose a lot of efficiency on this front.

Read more