Kisha: the new smart umbrella that predicts weather and never gets lost

There’s no excuse for ‘rain hair’ with an umbrella that lets you know the forecast, says Tom Bailey
Raining supreme: the Kisha umbrella, £50, has a Bluetooth tracking chip (Picture: Raining supreme: Miljenko Hegedic)
Miljenko Hegedic
Tom Bailey16 July 2015

It's one of London’s unwritten rules: don’t let the rain dampen your spirits. Ever. That said, the aftermath of a summer downpour becomes depressingly familiar, from the broken £4.99 newsagent’s brollies abandoned in the gutters to the soggy newspapers held above heads (ahem, after you’ve read them, of course) and bedraggled commuters wondering why “rain hair” doesn’t look as look as sexy as it does in romcoms.

But here’s some good news: the days of being caught brolly-less could be over. The world’s first smart umbrella is about to go on sale in the UK. The £50 gadget — called the Kisha — looks just like any other umbrella but contains a coin-sized Bluetooth tracking chip. “We’re 100 per cent sure you’ll never lose your umbrella,” its maker claims.

What’s more, it will warn you of bad weather. “It connects to your mobile phone simply, via Bluetooth,” explains Ben Fowler, CEO of TheFowndry.com, the online gadget retailer bringing the tomorrow-brolly to the UK. “The downloadable app lets you know the forecast for the day ahead and nudges you when you should take the brolly with you.”

It’s an innovation that’s sorely needed. According to a recent global umbrella survey the average person loses 5.6 umbrellas in their lifetime. While Transport for London says 11,000 brollies were left on the Tube last year. The Kisha couldn’t have timed its arrival better — but is it too good to be true?

Best umbrellas - in pictures

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To find out, I unfurled my very own Kisha. It’s built like a Rolls-Royce: you could go medieval jousting with this thing. A tad heavier than a normal brolly perhaps but that’s down to the heavy-duty, 100 per cent windproof, flexible ribs. In tests it has cheerfully withstood 120mph gales without breaking.

Once the Kisha is paired with my iPhone I attempt to give it the slip in a restaurant. Perish the thought. “Hey, you left your umbrella behind!” buzzes a push notification on my phone. This becomes quite annoying, until I discover that I can set the range and a “safe area”, ensuring my phone doesn’t explode with alarms when I walk around the house or pop out to empty the bins.

The Kisha umbrella

Still ready to silently dismiss the Kisha as a geeky, LOL-provoking novelty? An array of high-tech brollies is preparing to tap into our national weather obsession this year. Chinese engineer Chuan Wang has created an “invisible umbrella” that blows out a protective force-field of air, while the UmbrellaHere lights up to let other commuters know when you are prepared to share your brolly.

After a week of (impressively accurate) precipitation warnings, I’m sold on the Kisha’s iCharms — not to mention bone-dry. Actually, the Kisha did fail once, but that was my fault. The app warned of an eight per cent chance of precipitation. So I took a gamble — and learned some harsh lessons. One: my pathetic analogue brain is no match for today’s smart tech. Two: holding a soggy newspaper above your head definitely doesn’t work.

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