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Comment by pinkmuffinere | Hacker News Reader

We make stingray resistant booties! No AI so far, we’re happy enough just to have “multi threading” :)

Holy moly new fear unlocked, is this a real issue beach goers face? Have never heard of it.

Ya, it’s a real issue, but depending on where you are, you may not have as much to fear — stingrays prefer sandy, gentle, warm coastal waters. As one concrete example, SoCal beaches have a lot of stingrays, and in summer days there are often lines of recent sting victims at lifeguard towers.

There are also different species of stingray, and some sting more than others. The ones that bury themselves in the sand when threatened are more likely to get stepped on (and then sting). Other species tend to run away when frightened instead.

Ahh I see, thank you for the details. Your product looks tempting even just for beach shoes ie walking on rocks, coral. I’ve faced problems with existing products that they either have holes in them that small rocks can get in or they’re not tight enough and can easily fall off when swimming.

Ya, it can be hard to balance all the aspects you care about. Unfortunately we don’t recommend wearing our booties on rocks/concrete/coral, because the soles will wear out faster than normal. It’s on the horizon as something to improve. I’d love to give you a recommendation for an alternative, but my personal use case isn’t generally swimming — I haven’t tested a lot of the alternatives for that. Would normal surfing booties work? They’re often nearly skintight, and many have a rubberized sole which should help with the rocks/coral

Eg https://www.patagonia.com/product/r5-yulex-round-toe-winter-...

Wow I had no idea those existed, that’s very helpful thanks!

No problem at all!! I would recommend staying with a “name band”, the generic ones you find on Amazon aren’t nearly as good. Name brand here would be like O’Neill, ripcurl, xcel, Vissla, Patagonia, etc

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