According to industry experts and cell-phone manufacturers NFC (Near Field Communication) will become a standard function in the near future for short range wireless communication between portable devices.

NFC works on high frequency like Bluetooth but over a shorter range, only a few centimeter and is based on inductive-coupling, where loosely coupled inductive circuits can be used to share power and data between devices.

Some of the application already existing based on NFC is cashless payment, access to restricted areas or as entry ticket, to name a few.

In time for the big scale roll out of NFC, Austrian research teams at Seibersdorf Laboratories and Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) came up with a woven NFC tag for integration into garments.

The new tags use standard NFC RFID chips that are attached to an antenna manufactured from thin copper wire, Seibersdorf scientist Stefan Cecil has told NFC World. The antenna is integrated into the fabric during the textile production process and, while the NFC chip currently then needs to be attached by hand, Cecil expects this process to also be automated in the future.

Whenever I am talking with people about wearable electronic the most burning question is always: can it be washed? It seems the team at the Seibersdorf Laboratories anticipated such question and tested washing cycles at 60°C, spin dried and ironed with a conventional electric iron – without impacting the functionality of the NFC textile tag.

On the technical side of NFC is a big plus point over Bluetooth, it does not need any pairing, it forms an instantaneous form of networking, similar to people that meet on the spot and start talking networking.

What does this exiting development mean for wearable technology? Imagine having the NFC tag inside a pocket of your garment where you keep your cell-phone. The garment can send it’s information coming from integrated senors monitoring your fitness or work conditions. The cell-phone can either process and visualize the data via an App or send it to the mother-ship in the cloud for processing.

Washing machines equipped with NFC (yes such machines are in the making) can ‘talk’ with the NFC enabled garment and select the required cleaning program.

For the high-tech fashionistas – changing color accents of a high-tech, illuminated dress via an App from the smart phone in the pocket before hitting the party scene is not a vision of the future but can be reality sooner that you might think.

[source: Near Field Communication World]

Sport enthusiasts know that sooner or later discover that parts or their body can not cope with their enthusiasm, leading to dislodged joints and painfully strained extremities.

Fortunately, wearable electronic and the inventive mind of Marcus Moche, Alexandra Morgan and David Schmidt, currently students at the Northeastern University College of Engineering, might provide a solution in form of a smart shirt.

The team developed a Data Logging Shirt containing three motion sensors placed on strategic places in the shirt. The sensors are connected via conductive thread to a serial port connector on the back which in turn connects to a computer for data crunching and visualization.

In future, refined prototypes will replace the serial connector with a wireless module making the data logging shirt completely independent to be used on the sports ground.

The idea for a data logging shirt comes from the Baseball area where elbow injuries incur losses of millions of dollars each season due to the no-show of injured players. The data-logging shirt can help pitchers preventing elbow injuries while providing an electronic analysis of pitching mechanics.

Pitchers become more susceptible to injury when they lose consistency in their mechanics, the physics of how they throw the baseball, pitch after pitch.

Compared with current methods of analyzing mechanics which require pitchers to perform in laboratory settings, the data-logging shirt provides a lightweight solution which does not interfere with the pitching motion and is even machine washable.

The team plans to integrate more sensors like gyroscopes that will pinpoint the positions of body parts over time.

Performance and motion monitoring sport clothing is an area highly interesting as trainer and support personnel at competitive sport events can observe at which point their stars go over the physical limits as opposed to go just very close to the limits.

[via: Boston Globe]

One of the most ‘sensible’ wearable electronic concepts I have seen is the Wearable Posture Monitoring vest from Lucy Dunne.

Spending every day a lot of the time behind the desk and hammering around the keyboard like many others are doing nowadays, the body posture changes from energetic in the morning to almost melting in the evening.

Doing that over a longer period will have an impact on the body functions. Lucy Dunne’s posture sensing and alerting design can spare pain and save money for doctor bills.

The Wearable Posture Monitoring vest uses a fiber-optic sensor to detect the curvature of the spine. Through a Bluetooth connection, posture data is sent to the user’s computer workstation, which provides feedback and reminders to the user when they lapse into unhealthy postures.

The Wearable Posture Monitoring vest is one of Lucy Dunne’s current projects and let’s hope it can make it into production in near future, I am signing up for pre-order as soon as it goes online.

Lucy Dunne created over the past few years stunning simple but amazingly functional wearable electronic concepts. She holds a Bachelor’s and master’s degree from Cornell University in textiles and apparel design, as well as a Ph.D. in computer science from Ireland’s University College Dublin.

Another project I like from Lucy Dunne is made back in 2002 is the ‘Smart Jacket‘ that automatically heats and lights up when it is cold and dark. It also  contains a pulse monitor to measure activity level for joggers and walkers.

Interesting and useful especially now during autumn/winter time when protection and visibility is needed as it’s too cold to use the heart rate monitor bras and shirts.

Lucy Dunne has a large portfolio of wearable electronic projects, a excellent source of inspiration and learning. She is currently working as assistant professor of wearable technology and apparel design at the University of Minnesota working out a way to bridge the still existing gab between apparel and electronic industry by demonstrating with her concepts how simple it can be to add ‘sense’ to our outfit.

An interesting product that does not use e-Textiles or any of the wearable electronic technologies we usually write about but related to the way clothing – in this case gloves – need to adapt to be able to interact with our indispensable electronic gadgets.

As we are on the way to the big freeze outside let’s have a look how we are going to interact with all the touch screens around us.

Most of our cellphones, iPods, Nintendo DS, ATMs or many public info systems have large touch screens which can not be operated with gloves covered fingers. Taking off and on the gloves just for picking up the phone is not the most convenient way of using a cell phone.

Dots has come up with an amazing simple and low cost way to solve this problem: gloves that have small metal dots on each fingertip making the contact between your fingers’ skin and the sensor surface. The smooth, curved surface of the dots is completely safe for touch screens and won’t scratch them according to Dots.

Two price points are available, $10.- or $15.- depending on your choice of fabric.  It’s a small price you have to pay for keeping your fingers warm while using your cellphone.

As I said at the begin, this product is not about wearable electronic but it does show how our clothing will has to adjust to technologies we are using here and now.

[Wired via CrunchGear]

Apple Inc‘s patent application “Smart Garment” released on Sept. 11, 2008 strongly indicates it’s interested into the development of wearable electronic / smart clothing.

Apple’s popular iPod range has actually helped to kick start the wearable electronic business by providing a kind of standardized interface platform with the iPod range. This standardized platform together with a large consumer base allows the creation of add-on products that benefit from this large consumer base as potential customers of add-on products.

Made for iPod accessories are a huge business and the first wearable electronic products are largely relying on the Made for iPod platform.

With the ‘Smart Garment’ patent application Apple indicates smart garments might be the next big opportunity to make business and wants to claim a part of it as Apple has done by introducing the ‘Made for iPod’ license fee for current iPod ready products.

The patent relates to ‘A sensor authenticated to a garment transfers information, either wirelessly or wired, to an external data processing device. Such information includes location information, physiometric data of the individual wearing the garment, garment performance and wear data (when the garment is an athletic shoe, for example). The external data processing device can be portable digital media players that are, in turn, in wireless communication with a server computer or other wireless devices.’

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is another area that gets attention as the patent application suggests to incorporate RFID tags into future smart garments to allow it to be pairs with the smart system and at the same time ‘monitor’ if the users to not hack their future wardrobe.

According to the text in the patent application, such shoe-hacking does already occur: “Unfortunately, however, it is becoming more commonly practiced to place the sensor at locations on a garment (shoes, for example) that are not specifically designed to physically accommodate the sensor and/or calibrated to accurately reflect data supplied to the wrist device.”

Further down in the text it reads: “However, some people have taken it upon themselves to remove the sensor from the special pocket of the Nike+ shoe and place it at inappropriate locations (shoelaces, for example) or place it on non-Nike+ model shoes. Therefore, what is desired is a method of electronically pairing a sensor and an authorized garment.”

This makes it very clear: Apple does not want anyone to ‘mess around’ with their system and you have to stick to the wardrobe Apple approves (jeans, turtleneck shirt and Nike New Balance shoes).

Doom saying beside – I like the idea to pair the future wardrobe like we do now with all the gadgets we own. Clothing becomes part of our digital life before we know it. What sound crazy today might be an everyday item in just a few years time. Examples of such rapid development and adoption are many around. If something is cool or useful or both it’s going to become big quickly.

I am not expecting to see during the next MacWorld coming January the first iShirts or iSneakers announced by Steve Jobs as ‘one more thing’ but Apple applying for a Smart Garment patent indicates an interest into smart clothing from the most creative company on the planet.

Such interest adds more weight, more energy behind our beloved topic of a wearable electronic enabled interactive fashion future.

[via: Gizmodo and TUAW]