Review: Hi-Call Bluetooth Gloves by Hi-Fun (video)

With Winter here the cold weather is on its way so we decided to take a look at some Android accessories that would be useful in the cold. The first accessory that caught our attention was the Hi-Call bluetooth gloves created by an Italian company called Hi-Fun. These gloves are quite simply a novelty type of accessory but a lot of fun just the same. We will dive into features and usage first since thats the cool part and give our thoughts on the Hi-Call Bluetooth gloves design after since the design is a bit less impressive.  Keep in mind that these are in no way handsfree as you use your hand as a phone while leaving the phone in your pocket.

Hi-Call Bluetooth Gloves Features
These gloves come right out of a movie when it comes to the features. There is a speaker in the thumb and microphone in the pinky so you can literally put your hand up to your ear as if you are pretending to make a phone call. There is a small board sewn into the wrist of the left glove that has a multifunction button, LED and power button. You can easily answer incoming calls by clicking the multifunction button once and reject calls by pressing and holding it for a couple seconds during an incoming call. You can also use voice functionality of your device by holding the multifunction button down until you hear a tone and talking as if using Google Voice on a Nexus 5 or Siri on an iPhone. Has easy charging as well from the wrist of the left glove. The thumb and pointer on both gloves have capacitive fabric for using your devices touch screen with the gloves on.

Hi-Call Bluetooth Gloves Performance
The gloves connection to your smartphone is via bluetooth and works up to 39 feet away although thorough testing shows that you want to keep it within 20 feet for best call quality. After other testing we found that you can use them pretty heavily for a full day before needing a charge but sometimes there is a reduction in call quality after about 12 hours so its good to keep them charged. I personally would hold them up against any bluetooth headset as far as incoming sound quality and microphone output of sound. We assumed a little muffled sound would exist but didn’t seem to have an issue with it.

Hi-Call Bluetooth Gloves Design
So now we are into the design of the gloves which isn’t horrible but leaves much room for improvement. While the gloves are extremely comfortable they are thick and not too stylish. The control board that is sewn into the left wrist with the buttons seems to move a bit causing you to have to press just above the sewn buttons to actually hit the button to answer calls. As far as charging the gloves the micro USB port seems to line up perfectly with the hole that is shown to plug it in no matter how hard you are on the gloves themselves.

Conclusion
The Hi-Call bluetooth gloves by Hi-Fun are extremely comfortable and function exactly as they state although we would like to see a few more improvements on the design before wearing them in public. The cost of these gloves are around $70 – $80 USD which is fair due to the lack of any other real competition for what it is although is a bit high for the average user to grab a pair. I do have to say that the multifunction button needs a manual (does come with one) to use but one you get it down they are a lot of fun. This is a novelty item and not a daily use kind of accessory as stated earlier but worth checking out.