Haven’t owned a pair, but I was just wondering if these “light-up” sneakers use a battery, and where is it stored? Can it be replaced, or is it sealed in the shoe?
- Jinx
Hey Jinx. My nephews had the shoes. I don’t ever remember seeing a battery compartment. I do know that Greenpeace advised against them because a small quantity of mercury acts as the switch. Because there’s no way to recycle the shoe, the mercury ends up landfilled.
Chrome
Also not the shoes to wear if you are going purse snatching at night!
Perhaps they expect the shoes to be discarded before the battery goes dead.
The ones I saw did have a battery and did not have a mercury switch. The light was in the heel, and the entire hard-plastic wedge would pry out of the heel to expose the switch, battery and lamp. The mechanism was not significantly different than a disposable LED flashlight with a momentary-type squeeze switch.
Or incinerated…which send the mercury into the air and then into a nearby water-body or lung.
Some New England cities are starting mercury collection programs to reduce mercury releases to the environment. Part of this program was “education”…and light-up sneakers were mentioned as one surprising source of mercury.
Do we know for a fact that they have mercury switches? It seems unlikely (and ULish to boot)–a contact switch would be much more appropriate, and most likely less expensive. johnson jr’s light-up sneakers have some sort of contact switch (and no battery compartment that I can find)–moving them around to all different angles doesn’t light them up, as a mercury switch would, but banging them on something does light them up.
Can you say “L.A. Gear?”
Do you even remember L.A. Gear?
They went out of business because of this.
I may be imagining this, but I thought I did see a commercial for a glowing shoe. Not just a blinking light in the back, but stuff on the side. Is this what the OP was talking about?
They used to have a mercury tilt switch in them, but now it’s done with either a pressure switch or a ball-bearing tilt switch.
I took one apart several years ago, and I can verify that they did indeed have a liquid metal switch encased in plastic (at least, the ones I took apart did). From all of my later experience with mercury, I’m pretty sure that’s what it was. Luckily, I didn’t break it open to find out.
So how did they use the mercury switch? It just turns on if you tilt the shoe forward?
I wonder if one can use a piezoelectric crystal instead - compressing it would generate power, so no battery or switch needed.