Illuminated, color changing cushions are not new but with the onset of long, dark hours that come at this time of the year, bringing some relaxing, soft colors into the living room has great potential to cheers people up.

To my experience any kind of light radiating object with a soft, tactile feel never misses the surprise effect for onlookers.

The Color Changing Moonlight Cushion, which retails for about $39.- might be just the right colorful dash in your home.

Besides the soft touch feel of this decorative cushion, the color changes when the cushion is stroked – a nice touch which is taking the interactivity one notch up on our interactive textile scale.

As we enter again the time of the year where we spend more time indoors it might be a good idea to look around how we can make this time as cozy as possible.

Pillows comes first to my mind as I hardly have seen any house, apartment or room that hasn’t pillows around for decorative, atmosphere creating purpose.

Why not adding a bit of magic to such pillows to make them more sensual. A pillow that radiates soft, relaxing music adds a bit of magic to your living room.

The are many shapes and styles of speaker pillows in the market to suit almost everyones taste. A great value for money is on offer by Amazon which sells the Ipod Music Speaker Pillow- Purple Butterfly Designfor $ 19.99 but there are other shapes also available like Star and Heart for the same price.

The name of the Butterfly pillow is a bit misleading as it works not only with the iPod but with any audio player with 3.5mm headphone jack. The cool part is that it has volume control built into the pillow.

Another way to bring coziness and warmth in your home is a light up pillow like the playful design of the Doggy Paws Pillow.

This cute Doggy Pawn Pillow is able to lift your spirits by glowing warmly in your hands or on your couch.

The built-in LEDs are bright enough to give reading light but soft enough to create a mystical atmosphere. The pillow magic can be switched on and off at will of course.

The  Doggy Pawn Pillow is available for $ 25.- via this online store.

Pillows are often used and decorative item and soft technology add a new dimension to them: sensual and magical. With interactive pillows around your home you are ready to enter the coming autumn/winter season.

Florence Bost is the creator of a wide range of highly interesting objects made of a hybrid between fabric and new technologies transforming such ‘simple’ items like pillows into an innovative, poetic artwork.

Her lovely range of City Pillows make discrete use of light elements such as LEDs or EL-wires in combination with beautiful design to enhance the visual and sensual experience of the pillows.

Florence inspiration comes from textile materials, colors and the possibilities todays technologies offer allowing her to create the effects she wants to achieve. According to Florence, the ‘invisible’ use of technology is the ‘real’ use of it, seeing the effect but not the technology itself.

It is very important for her not to fall into the gadget / geek side of the soft technology spectrum. The right choice of technology is what gives it the validity to the product.

Florence Bost, founder of Sable Chaud, has acquired a unique expertise in the integration of new technologies. With a formal industrial design education and 15 years of creative research, she has acquired a multidisciplinary vision and solid design experience that puts her work on the cutting edge of soft technology innovation.

She works with a team of experts from diverse domains (including trends, music, electronics, scenography, editorial, etc.) to better address the many facets of contemporary design.

Her projects most often start at the early stages of product design. She has her fingers on the pulse of technological progress, provides idea books, and prototyping.

The Butterfly design for example uses shape-memory materials that open and close the wings by responding to temperature creating the illusion of living creatures.

The City Pillows are available via this site but as Florence Bost’s objects are artworks you need to check directly with her about the price.

Nevertheless, if you have already a cool apartment our house, a City Pillow would be the perfect finishing touch for your interior decoration.