The tying and untying of your shoelaces may not be way up there on your list of everyday hassles, but hey – if you can get around doing it, why not? That's the idea behind Zubits. They're magnetized shoe closures, that take the place of bows.
Each pair of Zubits are initially threaded through the laces of an existing set of shoes. You then knot those laces off to keep them from coming unthreaded, cut off the excess, and then presumably forget about ever tying a bow again. Instead, you just snap the faces of the Zubits together to close up the shoe, and pull them apart when it's time to take your shoes off.
From the looks of the Kickstarter pitch video below, they stay quite securely fastened when the shoes are in use, yet can be released just by stepping on the heel of one shoe with the other, then pulling your foot up – just like people do with regular laced shoes, when they're too lazy to bother untying them.
The San Francisco-based Zubits designers have already far exceeded their funding goal, so it looks likely that the closures will actually reach production. A pledge of US$20 will currently get you a pair, assuming all goes according to plan.
Sources: Zubits, Kickstarter
