This Infrared Heat Lamp Keeps Your Hands Warm as You Type

Cold hands are apparently a big problem for professional gamers and office workers, so a couple of young Danish entrepreneurs set out to find an efficient hand-warming solution. This ingenious keyboard heat lamp is the result of their work and research.

One night in May 2016, Emil Frølund and Mats Sørensen were playing Counter Strike in Emil’s basement. They were getting “owned” by their opponents, and like any real gamer, they had all sorts of excuses – bad teammates, slow internet connection, cold hands. And while they couldn’t do very much about the first two, that last one was definitely not out of their hands. That night, in a small basement, in Aarhus, Denmark, the Heatbuff keyboard lamp was born.

When I first read about this invention, I honestly thought it was one of the dumbest things I had ever seen. Who would actually pay money for a lamp that keeps their fingers warm as they type? It turns out that a lot of people would. The Envavo Heatbuff lamp has surpassed its goal on crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, and its creators say they have also been contacted by companies interested in their product. So yeah, this thing could be big.

The Heatbuff is an infrared short wave heater that emits perfectly safe heat waves that warm your fingers, but not itself or the keyboard. Just place it on your desk facing the keyboard and it will keep your fingers at an accurate temperature, so your hands never get too hot. It’s quiet, easy to carry around and has low power consumption.

Originally designed to help professional gamers increase their performance in tournaments, the Heatbuff heater also sparked the interest of office workers whose cold hands make it harder to type properly.

Good blood circulation is apparently vital for professional players of online video games like League of Legends. With prizes of millions of dollars on the line in big tournaments, nobody wants to be blamed for mistakes caused by cold hands, so they currently use “hand warmers” that produce heat from the exothermic oxidation of iron when exposed to air. But they can only be used before the game starts, as they have to be held in the hand. The Heatbuff keeps the players’ hands warm at all times.

 

With 14 days to go on Kickstarter, the Envavo Heatbuff has already surpassed its goal of 75,000 Danish krone ($10,800), raising an impressive 235,000 krone ($34,000).