With Father's Day just a few short weeks away, here's a selection of presents for the connected dads, the sporty dads and the most definitely '2.0-with-an-upgrade' dads out there. Among this year's novel products you'll find several latest -eneration connected devices that bring together elegance and utility, sport and comfort.

GO LED Backpack
Available since April 18, the GO LED backpack by Port Designs is the first to come equipped with LED blinkers (rechargeable in 4 hrs via USB) to avoid accidents on the road. Thanks to its integrated panel of flashing LEDs visible from 360°, this modern urban-looking backpack is just as useful to cyclists as motorcycle riders and runners. It also allows the wearer, via remote control, to flash 4 directional change warnings to those in the vicinity. It comes equipped with protective compartments for computers and tablets as well as pockets for phones and MP3 players.
www.portdesigns.com

Epson Runsense GPS Running Watch
The Epson Runsense range is a series of connected watches equipped with GPS. They allow the wearer to analyze, manage or share their running, cycling or other activity performance figures. Four customizable screens present up to 35 different measurements (time spent, distance, speed). Perfect for long distance races, the top-of-the line model, the SF 810, has an integrated heart-rate monitor.
www.epson.com

Kaporal Connected Jeans
Kaporal, a brand out of Marseille, France, has developed a pair of connected jeans in collaboration with Buzcard. The jeans allow the wearer to create a vCard with a QR code. Once scanned with a smartphone, the jeans can share all the wearer's pertinent personal or professional information. New items of clothing of this kind should follow.
Pre-reserve your jeans at www.kaporal.com

Recon Jet Smart Glass
Recon Instruments is jumping on the smart eyewear bandwagon. While participating in open air sports and activities, the Recon Jet model allows the wearer to connect to a smartphone, keep track of personal performance stats, take photos and video, interact with social networks and even read text messages. It's a genuine on-board computer that also displays things such as temperature, speed and altitude on a high-contrast screen. Water and dust resistant, the glasses weigh less than 100g.
www.reconinstruments.com

Babolat Play Pure Drive Connected Racket
Unveiled for the first time at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas earlier this year, the Play Pure Drive is a tennis racket developed by French company Babolat. The high performance battery allows for six hours of playing time with a memory capacity of 150 hours of game activity, breaking down different strokes and serves, and measures the speed and impact zone through sensors embedded in the handle. Thanks to an accelerometer, a gyroscope and a microprocessor, the racket analyzes your game and allows for a complete performance breakdown.
www.babolat.fr

XensrAIR Motion Tracker
The XensrAIR is the world's smallest and smartest 3D sports motion tracker. Perfectly adapted for sports such as skiing, surfing, snowboarding, kiting and even cycling, the XensrAIR collects data on things like jump height, rotations, distance and landing impact before displaying them in 3D for the wearer to visualize on his smartphone or tablet. www.xensr.com  

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