High-Tech Socks Come With App, Microchip And A Very Strange Ad

Smart socks aren't just socks without holes in. They are high-tech, database-managed, intelligent socks that can tell you how many times they've been washed. Why you would want socks this savvy is a bit of a mystery to us, so here's a 3 minute ad that will explain it all.

Meet Samy Liechti, founder of Blacksocks.com, the sockscription service. It's exactly what it sounds like. You pay a small fee and regularly receive crisp, new, black socks in the mail. The idea came about after an embarrassing incident at a Japanese tea ceremony.

Clearly Liechti was so mortified about his footwear violating ancient ettiquete that he's been obsessive about socks ever since. 

Which may explain his latest creation, Smarter Socks. These are socks with a microchip built into them. The chip monitors the number of washes they've had, who they belong to and if their are a leftie or a rightie.

This means that not only can you ensure that your socks get washed, but you can pair your socks up the same way each time ensuring, as Liechti puts it, that "no sock is unfaithful to his sock partner".

This is a bizarre little ad that features an equally strange product: it can even use an iPhone camera to tell you how black your black socks are.

Unsurprisingly, a video about sorting socks isn't setting the web on fire. But with over 2,000 views and mentions on some of the biggest advertising blogs, it looks like the ad's oddness is at least winning it some attention.

As mad as this product seems, the company must be doing something right, it has 60,000 customers in 75 countries.