The e-Holster(R)… A Product Designed To Enable The Creation Of Either A Wireless Or Wired Personal Area Network

-- (INTERNET WIRE) -- 09/12/2000 -- The e-Holster(R), a device best described as “electronics suspenders” is a revolutionary piece of “personal e-Fashion gear” which collaborates with its owners body and their personal electronics to provide the “physical infrastructure” required to create a comfortable and fully mobile Personal Area Network (PAN). For either wired or wireless personal electronics the e-Holster provides the basic and necessary function required to create a PAN by enabling the user to comfortably “wear” from two to five (a pager can be clipped onto the e-Harness/e-Holster without need for an e-Pouch(R) providing a fifth application) personal electronics items on their person, in close proximity to one another, inside of very flexible, yet protective black ballistic nylon or black leather e-Pouch(R) units.

On Friday, September 8th a patent application was filed by the company with the United States Patent Office for a “shoulder harness apparatus with docking receptacles for wearing personal electronic devices in such a manner as to form a personal area network.”

A Personal Area Network, or PAN, is a low-cost networking scheme that enables computing devices such as PC’s, laptop computers, handheld personal computers, printers and Personal Digital Assistant’s (PDAs) to communicate with each other over short distances either with wires, or wirelessly. According to the Motorola web site, “the Personal Area Network (is) a bridge across the tetherless communications gap, providing a wireless link to the services consumers want, when and where they want them. Bluetooth, (the Motorola PAN product) enables the creation of wireless Internet gateways that allow Bluetooth-equipped devices to access the Internet quickly and easily.” According to the Bluetooth group, “the most popular scenarios will most likely be connecting the laptop PC to the mobile phone; universal headsets connecting such peripheral devices such as mobile phones and Walkmans to each other; short-range data transfer; and synchronization of data residing in different devices (for example, PDAs and laptops). ” What the Bluetooth Promoter Group (Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Nokia, Toshiba, 3Com, Lucent Technologies, Microsoft, and Motorola) has not mentioned is how consumers will be counseled to carry around or wear all of this new hardware.

The PAN vision is ultimately to offer consumers the ability to; have instant, automatic access to their personal and business data, have their electronic devices wirelessly and spontaneously synchronize with each other, have access to their e-mail and Intranet/Internet from wherever they are, instantly network with airlines, hotels, theatres, retail stores and restaurants for automatic check-in, meal selection, purchases and electronic payment. However in the meantime the e-Holster is designed to work with today’s wired technology and adapt to tomorrow’s wireless technology as well so consumers can create their own PAN now and then evolve with the technology.

The consumerization of PAN technology is forcing consumers and manufacturers to address the wear-ability and ergonomics issues that wearing multiple personal electronics carries with it. For years personal electronics consumers have had little choice but to purchase the belt-clip “holsters” and “pouches” for cell phones and PDA’s from the leading original equipment manufacturers and fill their belts with heavy, unbalanced, unmatched personal electronics. The “dirty little secret” that is discovered only after wearing one or more of these archaic accessories is that in addition to filling a belt, and moving pants South, they are not well designed for sitting or for riding in automobiles which is how we spend a majority of our time nor do they provide a comfortable or functional solution for more than one device. In response the e-Holster was professionally designed by holster and personal electronics technology experts to accommodate several devices simultaneously, these devices now being in close proximity on the user and having the ability to interact together either with wires or wirelessly. In addition the e-Holster wearer can utilize a hands-free setup for their cell phone which keeps the phone away from the head increasing the distance from any possible radiation.

The e-Holster was designed to respond to the growing market for Internet-based information appliances, cell phones, PDA’s, HPC’s—including smart handheld devices as it grows to $17.8 billion by 2004 (an increase from $2.4 billion in 1999) and the number of remote and mobile device users in the United States alone reaches 47.1 million by 2003 (up from 35.7 million in 1999 according to IDC Research).

The e-Holster is a “collaborative accessory”, that is an accessory which positively “collaborates” with the main invention and without which the main invention could not successfully evolve. For example without the watch chain (another collaborative accessory from the 1800’s which attached to a man’s trousers and securely held the pocket watch on his person) and ultimately the watch pocket (another collaborative accessory and an early innovation in men’s trousers) the miniaturization of the wall clock to create a mobile timepiece called the pocket watch would simply not have been successful. Similarly new and smaller wrist watches could not have evolved without the creation of another collaborative accessory called the watch band. Tom Traeger, CEO of Personal Electronics Concealment, LLC and inventor of the e-Holster stated, “we believe that the e-Holster is the “ PAN watchband”, the collaborative accessory for personal electronics and ultimately for the PAN. We believe it is now properly positioned to be the collaborative accessory for Personal Area Networks and our intent is to continue to lead the market in providing functional, aesthetic e-Fashion gear to enable Personal Area Network creation.”

In order to provide consumers with a simple way to create their own PAN, Personal Electronics Concealment, LLC will now offer two new e-Holster Professional models, the EHLPAN (eHolster Leather PAN) for $149.95 in full leather or the EHBPAN (eHolster Ballistic PAN) for $129.95 with a combination of high quality leather and ballistic nylon. Both of these new e-Holster Professional models are comprised of a high quality leather e-Harness(R), and three e-Pouch(R) units, one for a cell phone, one for an HPC and one for a PDA with two compartments, one for the PDA, one for the PDA folding keyboard. Custom e-Holster PAN combinations can be ordered from the e-Store located @ www.eholster.com. All e-Holster models are unisex, available in black only and one-size-fits-all. All e-Pouch(R) units are ambidextrous equally accommodating both left and right handed users. The e-Pouch units are modular and can be added to one another, deleted or moved from side to side simply by snapping and unsnapping from the e-Harness(R). Each e-Pouch can be adjusted on the e-Harness and the e-Harness itself can be adjusted to meet not only the users specific needs but anatomy as well.

Full information about e-Holster product line including a Live Picture Java 360 degree view and the ability to purchase online can be accessed at the online store located @ www.eholster.com. An online press kit is available @ www.eholster.com.

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