I’ve long been a fan of ScotteVest products: vests with a ridiculous number of pockets to hold all your technology; check out my detailed review of one of these for chapter-and-verse. The short version is that by putting all your tech into your clothing, you can get around the often-absurd limits some airlines impose on hand-baggage. Plus you can carry a lot of tech around town without the hassle of a bag.
The one drawback is that the vests aren’t exactly unobtrusive. You will always win any arguments with airline staff or security personnel, as there’s no limit to what you’re allowed to carry in your pockets, but it would be preferable to avoid such arguments in the first place. Scott’s latest product looks like it should achieve just that …
Instead of a suspicious-looking vest, it now offers a normal-looking quilted jacket – though I would say that it might attract more curiosity when wearing it in summer.
The Off The Grid (OTG) Jacket offers 29 pockets, one of them large enough for a 15-inch MacBook Pro, and another big enough for a 9.7-inch iPad. There are two clear pockets designed to allow you to see iPhone notifications without taking the phone out of the pocket, and you can thread in-ear headphones through the interior of the jacket to simply sit on your collar when not in use.
Between them, the 27 remaining pockets have room for all the technology you’re ever likely to carry, from full-sized headphones and mirrorless cameras to memory cards. A compact DSLR would also fit, though you’ll likely need to remove the lens.
There are also interior cable clips, allowing you to use a portable power pack to recharge gadgets on the go with the connecting cables between pockets tucked neatly out of the way, along with the same RFID-blocking pocket as in the vest I reviewed for those concerned about such things.
Scott claims that the jacket is ‘as fashionable as it is functional.’ I wouldn’t personally go quite that far, but I make no claims to fashion expertise. What I can say, though, is that it looks like a perfectly ordinary jacket that isn’t going to result in questions at check-in or thieves realizing that you are carrying four grand’s worth of technology in its pockets.
The Scott OTG Jacket is available in male and female versions, a choice of blue of black, and in sizes ranging from XS to XXXL. Note that the women’s XS and S versions don’t have room for the laptop pocket.
At $215, it’s not a cheap purchase, but when you consider that the vests run from $100 to $195, and the jacket gives you a piece of clothing that’s useful even when not carrying half of Apple’s product line about your person, it starts to look more reasonable. As standard clothing, it’s nano-coated for water-resistance (note: water-resistant not waterproof), and is machine-washable.
