NotiFly's 'SmartPants' Tell You When Your Zipper Is Down (Like a Mirror)

The craze for wearable technology continues, and the newest development could solve a endemic problem for every person who has ever worn zipper-fly pants. Then again, you could always just look in the mirror, but sure, this works too.

“Brad Pitt is on the red carpet, and his fly is completely down,” says Eric Schneider, a creative technologist, hardware, whatever that means. “Had Brad Pitt been wearing a NotiFly he woulda known that and gotten a cool message telling him hey your zipper is down and not gotten that bad media coverage.”

Basically, the button at the top of your pants works as a tiny transmitter that registers when the zipper is in contact with it and sends you a notification to your smartphone when it isn’t. The pants are woven with electronic fabric, and, unlike other wearables, the user interface for the device is pretty much zero-input. You don’t have to check it or set it or anything, it just notifies you when your fly is down. That’s it. It seems like an insane extrapolation of the wearable devices craze. Sure, they can be incredibly useful, and the idea behind NotiFly is solid — who wouldn’t want to never be caught with their fly down again? But here’s the product video, which, to be honest, might be a carefully constructed joke. Make up your own mind here:

Still, there are other very low-tech solutions to keeping your zipper up on your pants, including:

1. Hands

Hands are an important part of doing up a zipper, as it’s particularly difficult to get them up or down with teeth or other appendages (but not impossible if you’re into that sorta thing!) As you finish going to the bathroom, you can use the ancient technology of hands and opposable thumbs to properly fasten your clothing!

2. Mirrors

Humans have been using various reflective surfaces for over 8,000 years.

3. Velcro

Hey, if it works on shoes, it should work on pants, right? If you must have pants that fasten (and don’t want to just go the elastic waistband route on everything like me), just use velcro! Then you’ll be so mortified by the thought of anyone seeing your velcro-d pants that you’ll never forget to fasten them.

4. A Complicated System of String and Pulleys

If you really wanted to, you could probably fasten string to the end of your zipper and then fashion a delicate and intricate system of pulleys and levers that would make sure to pull your zipper up when you made a series of gestures like opening a door or dancing the Macarena. This would make it so even if your zipper was left down, people would be too busy staring at the strange assortment of DaVinci-like apparatus protruding from your clothing to notice that it was down!

Or you could buy these pants. Why the hell not.