Based on the feedback we receive on talk2myShirt and my personal experience, illuminated textiles, be it for clothing or interior design, never fails to trigger instant, highly emotionally charged reactions from everyone around when seeing textile objects suddenly light up, changing their color.

I am not talking about blinking, cheaply made decals, I am referring to ascetically sophisticated designs using soft light effects to emphasize the softness of fabric.

Technological developments into light emitting textiles are mostly at their early proof-of-concept stage and there is no reliable, commercially available product on the market for designer to use.

Nevertheless, many companies spend considerable resources to crack the technical difficulties and each new development is a potential step forward to unleash the powerful magic of textile illumination.

One such effort, more suitable for interior design than clothing design is coming from Japan’s Tsuya Textile Co., in cooperation with the Fukui Engineering Center. Their collaboration project ‘Delight Cloth‘ is a light emitting textile made from thin optical fibers measuring just 0.25 to 0.5 mm in diameter.

These optical fibers are woven to fabric sheets which can be used to cover ceilings, walls or furniture to provide a soft flowing and soft illumination for interior decoration.

I keep on mentioning interior because the ‘Delight Cloth’ will need a 100W to 150W light source connected to the fiber-optic ends of the woven cloth to send light, which could have any color, over the whole length of the cloth.

Not really a portable, wearable solution but for interior decoration an almost perfect technology to spread some soft and surprising magic around a room.

If you are planning to add some sparkle to your next fashion collection maybe Luminex could be your choice as they are offering a very similar fiber optic woven textile which seems is more suitable for a portable, wearable solution.

We got word from a Taiwanese manufacturer who has developed a textile ribbon using a new, low resistant electrically conductive yarn with LEDs mounted on a ribbon which can be cut to sizes as needed and then connected to a control and power supply unit to light up this textile string.

Our source told us this product has passed the development and pre-production tests and will be commercially available in January 2010. Pricing is not fixed yet but should come end of this month.

Here are some of the unique features the Luminous textile ribbon offers:

The textile substrate can be any conventional type of fabric like polyester, nylon, polyethylene, …

The appearance of the Luminous textile ribbon can be finished by traditional textile techniques such as dying and printing.

The current maximum length of the Luminous textile ribbon is 300 cm but a next the generation will push this to up to 100m.

The SMD LEDs are mounted on the ribbon via a specially developed process, keeping the Luminous textile ribbon light wight and flexible like any conventional textile ribbon.

Best of all – the Luminous textile ribbon can be used in water. A great concern in textile electronic is the functionality of such products when it comes in contact with water, a situation clothing and bags are usually exposed.

This amazing Luminous textile ribbon seems to offer a cut-to-measure, water resistant, textile like illumination option for forward thinking fashion designer.

If you can’t wait until more details about the Luminous textile ribbon become available on talk2myShirt and like to get in direct contact with this company, please drop us a line via the ‘Contact us‘ function (on the top of the right side panel on our blog layout) and we will connect you with the company representatives.

The Luminous textile ribbon features sound pretty amazing. It will be the first commercially available textile illumination technology ready for the consumer market.

I was able to talk during my TechTextil visit in frankfurt with Jürgen Thalmayer from Interactive Wear about the recent launch of their e-Textile designer kit.

Interactive Wear is not planning at this moment to open a online store on their Website. Orders for a designer kit can be made by sending an email with your wish-list to the following address: info@interactive-wear.com or call the following number: +49-8151-55506-0 (Germany).

There are some pre-packaged kits available like the iSolarX containing solar panels (flexible or rigid) attached with conductive textile cable, storage battery pack, battery pack charger (for those cloudy days) and a large selection of connector adapters to connect to almost any portable device.

Other kits available are the iLightX containing all components needed to integrate LEDs or EL decals into textiles, the iThermX for textile heating system design and the iComX kit for communication apparel design.

Although these 4 application clusters have pre-packed kits Interactive Wear is more than happy to bundle kit for specific designer needs. Just send you wish-list and you get all the goodies you need for your next great design.

I am very impressed with the documentation these kits have included. Not only a detail description about the best use of the components, the does and don’ts but also a wealth of tips coming from the hands-on experience from Interactive Wear how the components can be used in various different ways. This provides an excellent starting point for inspiring e-textile designers.

As previously mentioned, the price for the kits is between between €50,- and €150,- ($70.- and $207.-) depending on the actual materials requested. If you have trouble to contact Interactive Wear drop me a line and I will help to make the connection.

For a seamless integration of electronic into clothing solutions have to be found that conform with the surrounding material, in the case of Wearable Electronic this means with textiles.

Most textiles are stretchable, at least to a certain extend. If the textiles would not stretch the wearing comfort would be very limited. The clothing will not follow our bodies movement and look stiff if not limiting our movement at all.

Bendable electronics can be found as commercial products but they represent only a first step into the ‘right’ direction. Bendable electronic can follow curves like but do not follow properly the movement of clothing which requires often a certain degree of stretching of the material.

A recently published work by a group of Scientist at the University of Illinois promises flexible silicon and plastic circuits that can potentially be used for integration into clothing. This technology might open the doors for new Wearable Electronic (and other) applications that have not been possible without it.

Making electronic substrates thin makes it bendable, just as a piece of paper is bendable whereas a piece of wood is not,” says John Rogers who is heading the team.

To make elastic circuits, the team binds the silicon wiring to a thin sheet of rubbery plastic that has been stretched out to be approximately 15% wider and longer than it was before.

After applying the silicon circuit to the stretched material it is released and the rubber like material shrinks back to it’s original shape. The circuit forms a wave shape profile (see photo above).

According to the Scientists the performance of the circuit is completely unaffected by this process and in this way produced circuits can be stretched up to the 15%.

For a seamless integration of electronic into clothing it is essential that ‘conventional’ electronic needs to be bendable AND stretchable otherwise the integration would be to cumbersome and rejected by the wearer.

This new development will certainly enrich the ‘tool box’ of future Wearable Electronic Fashion designer and e-Textile engineers.

[source: NewScientist]

Textronics Inc. the innovator and creator of the NuMetrex fitness apparel collection is giving the term ‘Smart Textiles’ and Heart rate monitoring for training, fitness and health care a complete new meaning.

Textronics has been recently awarded a patent for its textile-based electrode system by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.

The patent is for stretchy textile electrodes that can be incorporated into wearable garments to comfortably monitor the wearer’s heart rate, ECG or other electrical activity of the body.

Almost at the same time Textronics received the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance to market its textile-based ECG Electrode for use in general electrocardiograph monitoring and recording procedures.

That’s in layman’s term the confirmation of the almighty FDA that Textronics sweetly soft, stretchy and comfortable smart textile sensor is not just picking up some signals, it is a high quality and accurate sensor for ECG measurements.

The FDA approval opens the door for Textronics to enter with it’s textile electrode technology the health care market, where advances in technology enable people to monitor their biofeedback from the comfort of their own homes.

This recent announcements establish Textronics and its NuMetrex range of heart rate monitoring fitness apparel as the clear leader in this market.

Leah Buechley showed us how to make truly textile electronic elements with her e-textile construction kit. Now Leah shows us how this technology can be used to create almost ‘out of this world’ clothing: a reconfigurable costume.

The costume consists of a torso piece and an assortment of sensing appendages that can be snapped to the torso. What brilliant idea and what a sensible blend between the more techno term of reconfigurable and the fashion term costume.

Sensors in the appendages include muscle flex sensors, accelerometers, bend sensors and touch sensors. Sensor data is relayed to a computer, via a Bluetooth module embedded in the torso, where it can be used to control or generate music, video and other multimedia content.

The costume is form-fitting and stretchy. The electronic modules are kept as small as possible so they do not interfere with the dancer.

The costume was used in an improvisational performance this month to control a player piano. This performance was a collaboration with Michael Theodore, a professor in the music department, and Nicole Predki, a graduate student in the dance department.

Click here for a movie of the performance. Be patient, it’s 150 MByte file.

May we see in future more of such playful and creative applications for Wearable Electronic technology and give Leah a big thumps-up for this creation and her inspiration for the rest of us.

[via: twenty1f]

We are always on the look out for enhanced textiles, textiles with added functionality, in short: Smart Textiles.

The Music Textile created by Maurin Donneaud (Industrial designer) and Vincent Roudaut (Interaction designer) is a highly interesting concept.

The Musical textile is a large tactile interface for playing electronic music. The performer plays it simply by moving his / her hand over it. The XY position where the hand contacts the music textile is transmitted to a computer. The current demonstrator allows a resolution of 4000 by 4000 points.

How does it work?
Two conductive fabrics are fixed on a frame, each one weaved with conductive threads in a different direction. When the performer presses any point of this textile, the two fabrics connect and the current electrical value is sent to the computer. It’s based on a voltage divider resistive principle.

Maurin developed this project at the National School of Industrial Creation (ENSCI) Paris, France, for his diploma in December 2005. Since then, he specializes himself in the creation of innovative electronic textiles and he continues the development of the music textile. Many more photos about the creation of the music textile can be found on Maurin’s flickr album.

We can imagine a wide range of application for this concept like wall decoration that allows you to create your own musical enjoyment, table cloth for interactive acoustical games,

Why this concept is interesting?
It’s a simple system, has great flexibility, is light in weight, has a nice soft tactile feeling, large surface of interaction, potential low cost and last but not least: can be wrapped around existing objects of various forms and shapes.

The Musical textile will be exhibited between April 16 to 21 during Malaupixel in Paris. If you are around or in Paris at that time you should have a look at it (and give us your impressions in the comments, would you please?).

[via: we-make-money-not-art]

It seems Philips is going into the fashion and textile business. First there was the ICD+ Jacket together with Levi, then the Lumalive textile display last September and now a really smart fabric.

Philips shows us a way which gives hope that the fitting-room fiascos will become a thing of the past ….. if this concept ever forays into the world of fashion.

The consumer electronics giant has come up with a concept to change the size, shape and style of clothes by weaving “muscle wires” into the fabric. The wires are made of shape-memory alloys that change length according to the small current passed through them.

Here’s how it could work: you try on a special pair of Philips’ trousers, and connect up to a power source that changes the length of the wires in the fabric until the trousers have the correct waist size, inside leg and width.

Then simply disconnect to try the trousers in exactly your size. Philips says the technique could also be used to correctly fit shirts, socks and bras, or indeed any other article of clothing.

We look forward to the day this hit the shops. Imagine you buy jeans or shirts or whatever and it will nicely snug and hug you gorgeous body.

If you are interested in the details and you are used to reading patent applications, have a look to the full auto-snug patent application.

[via: newscientisttech.com]

The northern hemisphere is almost through the winter season which naturally means all those folks are deprived of sunlight or light in general. Daylight can be as short as 6 hours or even less.

The LightSleeper, an invention of Loop.pH, a group that specializes in the design and research of environmentally responsive textiles, can ease the pain for everyone short of light exposure or hard to get out of bed every morning.

Light Sleeper is an illuminating, personalized alarm integrated into bedding that gently wakes in the most natural way. Ever since the beginning of time light has controlled our body clock telling us when to sleep and when to wake.

As lifestyles are rapidly changing with increased travel and demands on our time, people’s natural body clocks are out of sync. This pillow and duvet simulates a natural dawn that eases you into your day. LightSleeper Bedding uses electroluminescent technology allowing traditional textile surfaces to become a reactive light source.

That makes it a ‘must-have’ for us – don’t you think so?

Our body clock responds to an imitation sunrise by accelerating the wake-up processes. Research indicates that it is important that the light comes on gradually and that having a light on an on/off time switch will not have the same effect, this is why light sleeper bedding gradually begins to glow in a natural breathing rhythm over a 15-20 minute period.

A very interesting concept that might become reality soon. Loop.pH has the skills to design, construct and to fabricate structural and responsive textiles. They also conduct an extensive range of research activities and collaborate with the industry. Some items of their portfolio are available to commission for both private and commercial clients.

This last statement let us lazy bones hope to get wake-up help from our gradually illuminated duvet in near future.

The following text is taken from the research work from R. B. Katragadda and Y. Xu, “A Novel Intelligent Textile Technology Based on Silicon Flexible Skins”, Proceeding of the International symposium on wearable computer 2005 (ISWC05), Osaka, Japan, Oct. 18-21, 2005.

It shows a very interesting way on how to integrate complex electronic elements and function into fabrics. It is based on the idea to do the production of electronic components to a large extend in the for the electronic industry used processes but merge those conventional processes with the fabric and clothing specific requirements.

- begin quote:

Intelligent textiles, variously known as smart fabrics, electronic textiles, or e-textiles, have attracted considerable attentions worldwide due to their potential to bring revolutionary impacts on human life. Despite many promising progresses in this exciting newly emerged research field, there still exist a number of important obstacles. One of the most challenging issues is the conflict between the flexibility of the textiles and the need to incorporate sensing and computation modules. To address this critical issue, an innovative intelligent textile technology is proposed. The central hypothesis is that practical intelligent textiles can be realized by integrating fabrics with flexible transducers/electronics that are made using a unique, ‘flexible-skin’ technology.

The unique features of the silicon-based flexible skins are extremely desirable for intelligent textiles. A novel approach of making intelligent textiles by integrating the silicon-based flexible skins with textiles is proposed. The most important advantage of this novel technology is its compatibility with current MEMS and IC technologies, since MEMS devices (micromachined transducers) and ICs can be fabricated on the silicon wafer before the formation of the skin. This not only saves significant R&D efforts by avoiding re-invention, but also enables the integration of abundant sensing and computational capabilities offered by the silicon-based technology.

In order to be integrated with textiles, the original flexible skins are modified and a new perforated structure is proposed as schematically shown in Fig. 1. The new flexible skin consists of 4 components: (1) silicon islands that host sensors, electronics, and bonding pads; (2) metal interconnect wires between silicon islands; (3) polymer layers that sandwich silicon islands and metal wires; and (4) stitching holes etched through polymer layers, which allow the direct sewing into fabrics. One of the fabricated silicon flexible skins is shown in Fig. 2 (a). It can be easily twisted and bent without breaking the interconnect traces and silicon islands as shown in Fig 2 (b)

The flexible transducers/circuits made by the proposed method can be directly embroidered into textiles. It is worth noting that the stitching methods and patterns have substantial impact on the mechanical properties and robustness of the assembled fabrics. Numerous stitching patterns and methods, which have already been developed in the textile industry, will be an excellent resource to exploit. The following picture shows one skin stitched onto the surface of textiles using conductive yarns. The electrical contact was made by conductive epoxy.

- end quote

Following the proposed principles from R. B. Katragadda and Y. Xu would allow the use of rather conventional methods and processes to create truly Smart Textiles.

Please follow this link to read to full article.