Neat.
Wonder if it’s also watertight for hotel-room sous-vide…
And it can re-heat your pizza on the go…
10 gallons of coffee!
Probability (didn’t notice toiletry or other heat-sensitive object before asploding luggage) >> Probability (actual bedbugs in luggage).
140ÂşF (not 190ÂşF)
It’s called ThermalStrike? I hope there’s no logo anywhere. That would never cause problems in the security line.
What would probably be more useful, would be a disposable origami bedbug trap, that would show physical proof of bedbugs by morning. Then I’d know if heating my luggage would be worth the extra trouble.
Gweek recommended the horrifying-sounding novel, “Bedbugs,” a while back: http://boingboing.net/2011/08/30/gweek-014-hokum-scorchers.html
Even if you somehow have an ultra-specific incompetence at removing toiletry bags from luggage, a 90% chance of ruining your makeup is better than a 5% of getting bed bugs. Those fuckers are awful to get rid of.
Bed bug traps are not particularly reliable, and even in the best case “results by morning” is basically impossible. Bed bugs are very slow movers, and they go dormant for a week or more after feeding, so they’re much more liable to just sit tight than get caught in a trap. You can’t easily bait them, because blood is the only thing they eat, and they detect victims mainly by homing in on carbon dioxide sources; active traps require bulky, expensive CO2 generators that need frequent refills.
If you travel much, it really is a good idea to bake your luggage after every trip, no exceptions. There are other products like PackTite that you can put regular luggage inside of; the PackTite unit is more expensive than ThermalStrike luggage, but you only need one.
The DIY traps I’ve seen on the web use baking yeast for the CO2 source, but yeah, the instructions say to leave them in the room with no other sources of CO2 for a good long while. Ultimately, one would like the hotel to be taking care of this sort of thing. Oh Well, capitalism to the rescue!
so…
This is perfect for that “leave in the oven all day delicious roast beef”. Except this would be maybe “put a big roast in one of those aluminum foil roasting bags, leave in suitcase, and confuse the hell out of the cleaning staff at the hotel with the smell of roast beef” things?
They call this thing “ThermalStrike” and they are sure it won’t alarm the TSA? I don’t know how much to trust them.
The logo badge reads “ThermalStrike Heated Luggage,” so it should hopefully be clear to all but the dimmest TSA agents–say, the bottom 20%–that it’s not a thermal explosive or something.
In any case I would hope that word has gotten around by now. These are pretty popular products; there’s a lot of people using them.
I have a technique called “denial” that can keep away 100% of bedbugs.
I heard that in New York they have mutant bed bugs that have grown to six feet in length and developed mimicry of comfy hotel beds.
Not that I know this works for bed bugs, but there are certainly cheap methods of producing small amounts of CO2 - used in the aquarium industry, for one thing - yeast, water and sugar should do, and will provide CO2 for weeks on end for a small container, say 250ml or so.
e: beaten to it, and by 14 hours by the looks of it. Is it just me, or are boingboing comment threads not the most intuitive to use with regards to replies, particularly replies to replies?
e#ii: also, can’t wait till the reports of people forgetting their scented candles in the luggage before commencing the bedbug roast.
The yeast trick is clever. I did not know about it. Pretty intuitive, in hindsight.
Or you can jury-rig a small Kipp generator with vinegar and baking soda; an elegant way for chemical production of many gases. (Todo: make a milliliter-scale one.) Or use a needle valve and the small bottle of CO2 for a soda syphon. Or use a small heater and thermal decomposition of a suitable carbonate, though not sure how well it would work in comparison with the wet (Kipp) way.
Friends of mine have had them, and really hated them, and yeah, that’s bad, and my wife tends to unpack everything after a trip directly into the laundry to help prevent them.
But the “missed toiletries” problem isn’t just the risk of the missed item being damaged; I’ve also had a long history of various products melting / freezing / leaking in luggage and messing up everything around them. Non-acetone nail polish removers are a much better thing than having leaking acetone… And the idea that all the toiletries will stay in the toiletries bag just hasn’t been realistic.
