Cabela’s has introduced the new ColorPhase technology to select styles of their Zonz camouflage hunting clothing. ColorPhase modifies the Zonz pattern with 4 colors that change along with the temperature. They become more green the warmer it is and more brown the cooler it is. The concept isn’t necessarily new. If you ever had one of those Tshirts that changes colors as you work out, you’ve seen the technology in action. What is new is using it with camouflage.
Could this work for the military? I’d say not. For one thing, this is a visual spectrum camouflage. Additionally, I’m not so sure it’s going to work for hunters. The pattern phase changes at 65 deg. Considering that your body is going to warm up as you move through the brush, you will invariably be more green than your surroundings.
Tags: Cabela's
I’m just speaking as an amateur here, but my understanding of camouflage and the visual system was that, at least for humans, hue was kind of secondary to how dim or bright a color was.
If you’re in generally appropriate colors for the terrain, breaking up the shape of your body, and matching the brightness of the background and the noise level of the environment, would be most important.
I understand that some cameras can pick out colors better than humans, but the problem there is usually circumvented by picking colors that stay a part of the environment irrespective of season, like khakis and browns.
Random thought based on your pointing out that it only covers visual spectrum:
If one were to go for a camouflage system that was really comprehensive – a smock or thellie – this might actually work better, since ideally the suit would stay at environmental temperature.
I’d love to find this super cool, but really it just kind of strikes me as another hunting gimmick that ingenious designers – and weird quirks of our visual systems – have already made obsolete.
Works the wrong direction for my environment: I need more green in winter, less in summer.
Maybe it would make a good blind material, but skeptical as you mentioned regarding on-body.
Deer are dichromatic, they see Yellow and Blue, we see Red, Green and Blue so this brown to green color change makes no difference to a dichromatic animal.
I was thinking that too, Guy, though at 0:25 he billed it for hunting turkeys.
Innovative yes but completely missing the mark from a hunting standpoint. But I degress.
I was wondering also what would happen when your body heats. I was making an order with Cabelas. So, I added one of their hats in zonz woodlands. I wore that the hat in 40 degrees while working. As my head got hot & sweaty, the hat remained brown.
On the hat that I received, only the back two panels had the color changing material. The rest of the hat was just green zonz woodland material.
Why do people fall for this? Same with the military camo patterns. Why not just wear a pattern that works in all invironments? It’s about breaking up outlines and blending basic colors. I have worn ASAT for several years now with amazing results. Especially out here in the west you may go from a green to brown to snow in a one mile walk. Multiple sets of terrain specific camo are just not an option.