Light animated suit controlled via iPhone and WiFi

Marc, a engineer and software guru from Miami created an amazing, light animated suit that will be for sure the highlight of every party you show up with it.

His iPhone Controlled LED Suit can serve as yardstick and inspiration for everyone who plans to create interactive fashion with outstanding light effects.

Marc sewed LED modules into the jacket and pants and controls the light pattern via WiFi from an iPhone App he too developed. The App can create random light animation or pattern.

To top off this amazing design, a glove serves as concealment for a microphone and accelerometer which adds movement and sound into the light animation mixture make the light pattern as random as life itself.

What a great, cool concept design. Check out the video below for some stunning visuals.

More details on the making of the iPhone Controlled LED Suit can be found on Marc’s dedicated LED suit Blog ‘uiproductions‘

[via Ubergizmo]

Soon people can call your little black M-Dress

Francesca Rosella and Ryan Genz, the creative force behind CuteCircuit are pushing the limits of wearable technology far into the future with their recent activities which ranges from illuminated stage-wear for artists to launching their own CuteStore for technology enhanced fashion.

In the ‘coming soon…’ section of the store we can find the famous Hug Shirt and the latest and coolest addition, the M-Dress.

The M (Mobile Phone) Dress is, as the name says, a mobile phone in form of a dress. That’s the coolest mobile phone form factor there will be on the market, surpassing the iPhone be far, at least from style perspective.

I am of course as curious as you our dear reader how this dressed up phone will work but according to CuteCircuit’s Website it does accept a standard SIM card which goes into a small slot underneath the label and the antenna is concealed in the hem of the dress. No mention which battery is used or where it will be stored in the dress.

The M-Dress will have the phone number of the SIM card you have used in the old days where people used plastic and metal boxes to make a phone call.

When the dress rings (or may be vibrating is more appropriate) raising the arm to your ear will open the call triggered by a motion sensor. Putting your arm down will close the call. Simple and beautiful.

CuteCircuit has developed special gesture recognition software to enable the smart M-Dress to work in an intuitive way, blending into the fabric of our digital life.

Lets hope CuteCircuit is also serving the other half of the population, the boys, with a similar futuristic designed piece of garment.

Wearable Power – the body as power station

Next to interactive gloves, wearable power is coming into the news on a regular, frequent basis. The latest news I picked up is based on research work at the University of Southampton where scientists aim to generate energy through people’s movement.

In theory human motion generates an estimated 67 watts of energy with each step. This is a lot which easily can supply power to run a notebook or any of the other indispensable electronic pocket devices we carry around.

The challenge is how to collect and transform this power of our body into electrical energy and feed it to our gadgets while we move through our days.

The scientists think the solution is by applying rapid printing processes and active printed inks to create an energy harvesting film on textiles.

‘This project looks at generating electrical power from the way people move and then applying an energy harvesting film to the clothes they wear or the materials they have around them,’ says Dr Steve Beeby, head of the research team. ‘We will generate useful levels of power which will be harvested through the films in the textiles. The two big challenges in smart textiles are supplying power and surviving washing.’

The research into the Microflex project, , a Framework 7 European Union funded project, is set to start in October and runs until 2015.

At the end the project will provide a toolbox of materials and processes suitable for a range of different fabrics that will enable users to develop the energy harvesting fabric best suited to their requirements.

We will keep our eyes clued on this project as we do watch out about other wearable power initiatives. Mostly long term projects but one never looses the hope to get the break through one day soon. Wearable power is a much needed element when it comes to make smart clothing.

(source: Science Daily via Ecouterre]

Networked gloves

As I mentioned some times ago gloves somehow do attract a big share of attention among the wearable technology community and fabulous ideas keep flowing.

Today’s interactive glove has been designed by Ashwin Rajan and Kevin Cannon with the intention to provide a gesture-based communication tool for firefighters, the Frontline Gloves.

Frontline Gloves are a pair of networked gloves that allow two fire-fighters to use hand gestures to communicate with each other in a fire-fighting situation.

Firefighters and other professions where communication and coordination is essential and life saving but high noise levels gesture communication is used. But when low visibility joins the game, gesture control does not help either, hence technology enhanced gloves like the Frontline Gloves and fill in the missing link.

Each glove contains the control electronics, a wireless XBee module, a sonar sensor which can detect distance in a low visibility environment and ultra-bright LEDs to display the gesture controlled information. The gestures are picked up by bend sensors in the fingers.

Although the purpose of the course was to learn about the Arduino platform, testing the prototyping potential on an hypothetical usage scenario, the duo has made a highly interesting design proposal with practical value and demonstrating the sheer unlimited possibilities not only of the Arduino platform but also the potential of wearable technologies.

Ashwin and Kevin deserve a thumbs up = OK send by the Frontline Glove.

MagIC T-Shirt for health monitoring

I use frequently the word ‘magic’ in connection with illuminated clothing as light radiates a kind of magic especially when it comes from objects that are not (yet) commonly known to light up like …. clothing.

The word ‘Magic’ in connection with health monitoring T-Shirts has another meaning in this case as ‘MagIC‘ stands for the Italian acronym ‘Maglietta interattiva computerizzata’ (’computerized interactive T-Shirt’).

‘MagIC’ is a wireless, bio sensor equipped prototype T-Shirt in the space of telemedicine applications. It has been developed by the Telemedicine and Wearable Sensors Laboratory of the Technological Pole and the Biomedical Research Department of the Milan-based Research Hospital Santa Maria Nascente (IRCCS S. Maria Nascente), Don Carlo Gnocchi Foundation.

The technological status of this Magical T-Shirt is very advanced based on several years of intensive field testing involving about 200 subjects placed in various situations, from seniors with a heart condition in recovery stay in hospital to rehabilitation patients and, in the framework of a European project, to people recovering at home.

The MagIC design received the CE marking last year and is now in the transition from research and development to first volume production and use as new tool in hospitalization and patient recovery.

The benefits of wearable, integrated bio monitoring clothing have been highlighted many times as it offers higher degree of convenience for patients as well as a seamless, continuous monitoring from hospital personal in a very unobtrusive way.

A small electronic module the size of a cell phone is connected directly on the shirt. Textile based sensors pick up vital body parameters to store but also transmit wireless the data to a control stations via Bluetooth.

As it is often the case, one’s need is serving as well the desire of others. Body monitoring is certainly not only limited to be of great value in patient care it offers benefits by observing cardio vascular performance of sportive activities and the monitoring of physiological parameters under extreme environmental conditions.

The benefits of bio-monitoring clothing are obvious but we are still waiting for first products commercially available. The MagIC T-Shirt seems to be very close to make this happen within the next 12 month.

[source: Telemeditalia via ePractice]

The CuteStore by CuteCircuit

One of the pioneers and trendsetter in the wearable technology fashion world, London based CuteCircuit has made their name by integrating new functionality into fashion through the use of smart textiles and micro electronics.

This integration has been recently demonstrated with the design of dresses for Katy Perry and Safura or the Galaxy Dress. To bring sparkling clothing to consumers CuteCircuit has opened their own online store offering technology enhanced clothing.

Rather then relaying on crystals releasing a sparkle when hit by a light beam, the Twirkle collection from CuteCircuit is the source of the sparkle, releasing a night sky star twinkle on a dress or shirt.

To ignite the sparkle you need to move, as more as you move as brighter you will sparkle and twinkle. I love this design twist by CuteCircuit to relate the light pattern to movements via a motion sensor.

The light sparkle effect is similar to the sparkle created by crystals that catch the surrounding light. The motion activation gives a more natural appearance, random light patterns rather than static, predefined and programmed light sequences that dent to be artificial and cheap looking light effects.

The Twirkle collection items run on basic coin cell batteries which are included in the retail price which ranges between $ 140.- and $ 187.- depending on the model.

The CuteStore is open for business and takes pre-orders with delivery by October, just in time for the darker season that need to be spiced up with a bit of sparkle coming from your shirt or dress.

Wired Hoodies from Rusty

Rusty, an apparel brand in the space of fashion forward clothing centered around surf, snow, skate, and the wake culture has launched the Wired Series of Hoodies with integrated headphones.

After we have seen the HoodieBuddie™ a few weeks ago this is the second brand that used the draw cord of a hoodie to act as headphone cable system with ear-buds at the ends of the cord.

The cable is routed inside the hoodie to a media pocket with an 3.5mm audio plug to connect to almost anything the portable music player world has to offer, the iPod and iPhone, cellphones and MP3 player of all flavors.

The headphone draw-cords are completely machine washable, no need to take out the wire when you throw it in the wash.

I fell in love the first time I have seen such combination of drawstring turned headphones and this one will be on the top spot of my Christmas wish list. No dangling of headphones wires , no need to do a cable management myself by stuffing the cable inside a hoodie, sweater or jacket and it looks cool.

Available in different styles and colors for men and women with prices starting at $49.50 like via this online store.

iPhone control for our jackets

We all know the iPhone with it’s application variety can control almost anything imaginable. So it was only a matter of time that creative minds made the link to clothing.

Artistic designer Alexander Reeder in collaboration with Yutaka Takahashi and Junpei Wada link up the iPhone with a jacket that can contain various modules such as an 8×8 LED matrix display on the back.

The iPhone loaded with an application can then turn the back of the jacket into your very personal message board to scroll your Twitter feeds, show your mood status or visualize the beat of your song you are listening.

Another module in the making is interesting for bikers, a flip of the wrist will illuminate the wrist area indicating your left or right turn. I could very well imagine some sort of breaking lights in the jacket as the iPhone with the integrated accelerometer can detect when you hit the breaks on the bike.

As far as I can see on Alexander’s Web site the iPhone controlled jackets will be produced and launched later this year, so this is not a design concept and looks like this is going to be commercially available in time for Christmas.

Watch the video below to get an idea how the ‘Vanilla Series’ of iPhone jackets will work.

This seems to be the first clothing item that does not control the iPhone like the iPod/i{hone enabled jackets we have seen in the past with textile keypads on the sleeve but these Vanilla Jackets are controlled by an iPhone.

I see this as another interesting step towards more interactive clothing.

[via: Fashioning Technology]

Polar job listing – Textile Engineering and Wearable Electronics

It looks like we can create a section for job openings in wearable electronic. After Adidas started building up their wearable electronic team Polar is now starting to build their wearable electronic team. If you are interested and match Polar’s job profile you can apply for the ‘Specialist, Textile Engineering and Wearable Electronics‘.

The wearable electronic specialist at Polar will be responsible for specification, design, implementation and verification of wearable electronics and textiles in Polar products. The job will include maintaining existing textile products as well as designing new pilot products, materials, features, textures, and techniques.

Applicants are expected to have strong experience in textile design and wearable electronics next to obvious things like textile or electronic degree, experience of supplier relations and manufacturing and more.

Read the complete application guidelines on this site. Applications for this job must be send no later than August 29th – so still some time to polish your CV.

There is just one catch – the work location of the Specialist in Textile Engineering and Wearable Electronics for Polar is at their headquarters in Kempele, Finland.

DIY wearable tech – Auto lacing shoe

Instructables member blakebevin posed a project that comes very close to fulfilling one of my longtime dreams: Power Laces – the Auto lacing shoe.

Since I was small and may be inspired by ‘Back to The Future II’ I always wanted to have shoes that lace themselves to support my natural laziness.

Finally the long wait for a solution is now almost over, that is if I can get myself together and follow blakebevin’s instructions.

The whole project is quite challenging from technical perspective but thanks to the excellent step-by-step instructions illustrated with many photos, a self lacing shoe is within reach, at least one that can demonstrate how useful and cool that could be.

The lacing power is controlled by an Arduino micro-controller which gets into action as soon as you step into the shoe and the force sensor reads the pressure of your foot. Two servo motors will then activate to apply tension to the laces, tightening the shoe. To unlace, a touch switch reverses the servos.

I love this high-tech design and although it might not be yet fit to hit the streets it is brilliant in the conceptional build up, a great object to draw inspirations for wearable technology designs.