Silicone Vs. Woven
Overview
These wristbands have been coupled together for a number of reasons.
Firstly they are primarily used for identification purposes rather than security, they are both prominent with sales into the Charity market & are associated with awareness campaigns. Secure wristbands do not stretch & cannot be transferred to other people. Silicone wristbands on the other hand stretch, & the awareness campaign woven wristbands have a resnapable clip fastener.
Both styles came to prominence with famous charity campaigns, Silicone wristbands with the Lance Armstrong Foundation's "Livestrong" anti cancer band & woven wristbands with Oxfams " Make Poverty History" campaign.
Silicone & Woven wristbands may be worn for months, giving a longer opportunity to present a message & promote a charity or special message. These wristbands differ from Tyvek, Plastic and Digital wristbands in that they can be removed & then replaced depending on the wearers lifestyle, while tyvek, plastic & digital wristbands are mostly designed for single use & are unusable once removed.
Woven wristbands made from polyester have been introduced as a method of entry at several European music festivals, they make a great long lasting souvenir, but have a drawback in that they require a small aluminium sleeve which slides up both ends of the wristband & is then clamped using special tools, this clamping is rather slow & subsequently woven wristbands use at festivals has not been widely accepted worldwide.
Silicone wristbands & Woven wristbands make great promotional items & the choice of which is better is really up to you. Silicone wristbands probably offer the greater flexibility in that they can be adapted, with other features such as USB's & watches embedded into the Silicon. One of the best examples of uses with Silicone Wristbands we have discovered is at www.aderra.net.