Levi’s is announcing new jackets with Google’s Project Jacquard technology, which turns a portion of the fabric on the sleeve into a touch-sensitive remote control for phones. Both versions are less expensive and much more like the original versions of the Levi’s jackets they’re based on than the first Jacquard Commuter Trucker Jacket, which Levi’s released two years ago.

The standard Trucker Jacket will be $198, and a Sherpa Jacket, which adds insulation for colder weather, will be $248. They should also be more widely available than the Commuter Jacket in many Levi’s retail channels and on its website.

The jackets are much more “normal” than the Commuter Jacket, thanks to two things: a new Jacquard Bluetooth module that’s smaller and easier to slot into the cuff of the jacket and a new method for manufacturing the jackets in the first place. Essentially, Levi’s gave up on weaving the touch-sensitive Jacquard threads into the sleeve itself.

Instead, it makes the jacket like normal, then inserts a small Jacquard fabric weave inside the cuff of the left sleeve. That helped Levi’s bring the cost down significantly. (The original jacket was $350.) In fact, the Commuter Jacket had more compromises than either company really let on: the sleeve had to be thicker to ensure there weren’t rogue touches happening from your arm, a problem solved on the new version with better algorithms.

As for whether anybody wants a smart jacket, color me dubious. I’ve been wearing the new Trucker Jacket for less than a week, and although the Jacquard app is capable of doing more than it did when I first tried it two years ago, it still feels a bit like a solution in search of a problem.

You can program up to four different swipes and taps to do a dozen or so different actions, like play/pause music, silence your phone, drop a pin on a map, or set your phone to read off the time or your appointments. You can also use it to have your phone give you details about your Uber or toggle noise cancellation on Bose headphones.

I did run into some annoyances with the software. For example, if you pair it with an iPhone and don’t pay attention to your location settings, it will annoyingly remind you that it can’t determine your location by announcing it out of your phone’s speaker. The fix is either to grant location access in full or to make sure you don’t turn on those location features in the first place, which means digging through every part of the app and turning off anything related to location.

Physically, the only difference between the Jacquard Trucker Jacket and a regular Levi’s denim jacket (which I wear often) is that the left cuff is a little stiffer and it has a snap-style button. That’s because even though Jacquard works with touch-sensitive threads, there still needs to be some actual electronics in there. Google and Levi’s insist that washing it multiple times should be no problem, though dry cleaning isn’t an option.

The new Jacquard Bluetooth tag is much more elegant, too. It’s a whole system that Google has apparently produced to work with multiple products; the recently released Yves Saint Laurent backpack also uses it. You simply slot the little thumb drive-sized doohickey into the appropriate slot in your sleeve and pair it to your phone.

It has a small light, which can blink to notify you of various things. That’s convenient because it can be difficult to feel its vibrations in your sleeve. It charges via Micro USB (boo), and it has a battery that should last just as long as the older version, which was much bigger.

The Commuter Jacket had a clear pitch two years ago: when you’re on a bike, you shouldn’t be looking at any type of screen. Instead, just swipe on your wrist to do a few simple things. Now that Google and Levi’s are moving away from that focused pitch and just making Jacquard a different option of the same jacket, I’m having an even harder time understanding who it’s for.

The price difference is still over $100 (or more, depending on Levi’s discounts), for one thing. For another, it’s unlikely that you’ll wear it every day, much less all day, every day. It seems to me that investing your money in a smartwatch makes much more sense.

But perhaps I’m failing to imagine what people might use this jacket for, or I’m underestimating how many people are willing to just spend extra money to get a tech version of a thing. For some, the novelty of it all might be enough to justify a purchase, but not for me. The Jacquard jacket looks good, works well enough, and is less expensive than it used to be. It’s a solid update on a shaky idea.

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