“I thought it would be even more convenient to wear the LED light on my clothes. Then I would have enough light everywhere, “says Dickens. At the kitchen table, he further developed his idea of a safety vest with built-in LED lighting.
The project gained momentum after Sickens spoke about it on a birthday with a firefighter present. “He said that they had been looking for something like that for years. Reflective vests are only visible when light shines on them. ”
Sickens received business and financial support from his father-in-law and his business partner. The first fifty luminous reflective safety vests were for the Rotterdam Fire Brigade. Without any marketing campaign, new applications came in from, among other things, shipping and road construction.
The 30-year-old entrepreneur is aware that his idea is actually very simple. “But it was not there yet and there is a lot of demand for it. Just like the paper clip. “He now has a patent and patent on the light vest.
The vest has a rechargeable battery that is fully within two hours and the LED light burns for 100 hours. Despite all electronics, it weighs only three hundred grams. According to Sickens, the vests, which are made in factories in Tilburg and Niemen, cannot be destroyed. “LED lighting lasts sixty thousand hours and we give a two-year warranty.”
The company has 69 different versions in the range, which can be washed out thanks to a special coating on the electronics. “The color of the vest, reflective tapes and the placement and color of the light differ,” says the young entrepreneur. “For staff who have to crawl through sewer pipes, there are vests with shoulder lighting so they always have enough visibility. Vests for crane operators have red lighting so that they can be clearly seen from the ground. ”
The vest meets almost all known safety labels. Only for the petrochemical industry. Strict requirements apply in that sector. For example, the vest must be explosion-proof. Sickens expects to have this quality mark in early 2018.