Designers’ goal was to make a wearable mobile kotatsu.
After a warmer-than-usual early autumn, cold weather came rushing to Japan over the past week. It was bound to happen eventually, and thankfully there’s a new way to cope with the increasingly chilly chill in the air.
As is so often the case, the unorthodox answer comes from Japanese gadget maker Thanko, with what it’s calling the Kotanpo.
Thanko calls the Kotanpo a “wearable one-person kotatsu,” evoking the name of the low Japanese table with a heater on the underside to keep your legs warm. Instead of furniture, though, the Kotanpo is closer to a blanket, but it does have a flexible heating pad inside its lining, which you can switch on to keep yourself nice and toasty.
That’s not the only special feature, though. The Kotanpo also has front pockets for hands and straps on the side to keep it fitted to your torso.
Most important of all, though, is the flap at the bottom which lets you stick your feet out, as shown in the video below, so that you can walk around while still wearing it like a heated toga.
Should you be venturing farther away than your wall outlet, the power cord is detachable, and the heat-retaining properties of its fuzzy fabric should keep you warm until you can make your return and plug it back in.
You can choose between one of six heat settings, and since it seems like a given that you’ll doze off while wrapped in this luxurious lair of warmth, there’s also a timer that can be set to power off the heater after 30, 60, or 90 minutes.
The Kotanpo can be ordered through Thanko’s online shop here, priced at 9,800 yen (US$86), with delivery scheduled for November, just in time for us to spend the entire winter inside of it.
Source: Thanko
Top image: Press release
Insert images: Thanko, press release
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[ Read in Japanese ]