Fabric Light-Bright is an amazing textile display project from Eli Skipp of Pumping Station One, a first class hacking community in Chicago.

I have never seen before such a simple yet highly unique eTextile design. Simple in it’s functionality as described by Eli but highly expendable and wide open for upgrading to more complex functionality.

What I am talking about is a piece of cloth on which you can stick LEDs almost anywhere to form characters, writing a message or to draw a graphic with LEDs. Connect this cloth to a battery and the writing or painting will light up.

Being made of textiles, this piece of textile electronics can be easily attached to clothing without adding stiffness.

How is it made? Simple! Sew conductive thread lines, the positive contact onto a regular piece of fabric. Make a second piece in the same way for the ground or minus pin and sandwich the two pieces together with another regular fabric between to keep the conductive lines separated.

Use a conductive fabric band to connect all positive and another band for the negative lines. Alternatively you could use conductive thread to sew the connection in case you have no conductive fabric on hand.

Bend the legs of the LEDs as shown in the instruction document and connect a battery to the positive and ground band and whatever you have ‘drawn’ with the LEDs will light up.

Additional photos showing the Fabric display in more details can be found on the Flickr stream of Anne Petersen.

As Eli mentions in the instruction document, there is plenty of room to expand on this simple concept, using different color LEDs, adding a LilyPad or sound functions. Actually this concept shows a way how to make a 2-sided PCB out of textile materials which will  be very useful for eTextile projects experiments.

The magic of illuminating textiles seems to be one of the focus points during the upcoming Smart Textiles Salon in Ghent, the jointed European workshop organized by the European projects SysTex and Proetex.

Spain based technology center Cetemmsa, with over 18 years of experience in carrying out applied research on smart materials will present their textile illumination technology in form of an European flag swaying in the wind so show the softness, the flexibility their technology can provide to textile display like products of the future.

The flag is made of a polyamide textile support coated with different layers of organic and inorganic materials of dielectric, light emitting and conductive properties, creating a soft, flexible textile display which can be bend, folded, crumpled and even torn.

The electroluminescent flag is mounted on a flag pole which contains the battery and the electronic to power the flag.

Sounds very exiting and offers a wide range of applications, starting as display on clothing, making it possible to use more of the iPod shuffle, display less devices. Other application areas include interior design and the wide field of magical outdoor advertisement and event decoration.

Visitors to the Smart Textiles Salon in Ghent, a jointed European workshop organized by the European projects SysTex and Proetex will see a highly interesting prototype called ‘Transitional Stripes‘, a technology exploration into color changing textiles.

The ‘Transitional Stripes‘ are the result of an AHRC funded project by Robert M Christie, Sarah Taylor and presented by Sara Robertson, PhD student at the Heriot-Watt University School of Textiles and Design.

The prototype uses laser etching and printing with liquid crystal dyes on textile. A programmable heat-profiling electronic system activates the liquid crystal layers, cycling through a variety of colors by selectively change the temperature of the different liquid crystal layers.

The colors of the different bands of textiles are activated at different temperatures starting at 25°C with a pale green color shade, blending into emerald green then lilac and turquoise.

With rising temperature the textile changes color through purple, pink and tops off with emerald green at 40°C.

Thermochromic dyes and pigments can be found in a variety of products and garments. Color changing T-Shirts have been in high demand a few years back at the begin of the ’90s, reacting on the change of the surrounding temperature but only controllable when the wearer changes from a cooler to warmer room (or the other way around).

Merging temperature sensitive, liquid crystal dyes with electronics to control the color change ‘on demand’ adds more interactivity to textiles, allowing to change the appearance of clothing or other textile surfaces. A cool technology I am sure many designer will like to use.

Philips Lumalive commissioned a new promo video for their LED based light emitting textile technology.

The video, called ‘Human Synthesizer‘, made by made by Jasmin Jodry from th1ng, visually explains the benefits of transforming garments into communication platforms via the Lumalive textile display.

Up to now Philips Lumalive technology has been marketed only towards the promotion industry which is utilizing the eye and attention catching magic illuminated clothing creates.

Maybe in making a promotional video about this technology will lead one day soon to the launch of Lumalive into the consumer market?

Having a shirt, dress or jacket that shows mood icons, logos of favorite bands, groups or just random effects would be …. magical as this soft, textile display is.

Lumalive’s textile display is based on a layer of flexible substrate on which the RGB (red, green and blue color) LEDs are mounted in a matrix of 14×14 pixels spread over an area of 20cm (8 inches) square.

Each pixel (LED) can be individually addressed as well as the intensity of each color varied, allowing to visualize almost any color.

The LED layer is covered with water repellent textiles for protection, diffusion of the pixels to give off a soft light and to have a textile like, tactile feeling.

A control unit provides the display with content of up to  10 minutes of unique animations which can be downloaded via USB from a computer. The rechargeable Li-ion battery provides power to the display for 3 to 4 hours.

Photos of ‘Lumalive inside‘ can be found on Leah Buechley’s Flickr stream.

[via: Dexigner]

‘e-Static Shadows‘ is a research project by designer Dr. Zane Berzina and architect Jackson Tan which creatively explores the speculative and poetic potential of static electricity found in our everyday environments, surrounding our everyday interactions.

The aim of the project is to investigate how electrostatic energy could either be effectively utilized or play a part in the development of active, responsive and interactive textile systems which would be capable of detecting, translating and displaying this energy into dynamic audio-visual patterns.

Most noticeable for us e-textile enthusiasts is the making of this beautifully aesthetically swaying curtain made of a woven e-textile matrix with incorporated woven sensors for static detection and LEDs which light up or dim down based on the electro static field around the curtains sections.

A excellent source of inspiration and knowledge sharing about e-textile weaving, the challenges, the possibilities, the e_Static Shadows Process page has an impressive ‘the making off’, split in 3 sections, with tons of photos documenting how the team around these two e-textile wizards in cooperation with TITV Greiz, The Institute for Special textiles and Flexible Materials, made this extraordinary e-textile structure possible.

This beautiful installation was exhibited at the Dana Centre, Science Museum London at the begin of March 2009.

All photos in this article are taken from the e_Static Shadows project site.

Beijing based Huasun Optoelectronic Science Co. selling a ‘made to order’ Flexible Led Curtain which looks and acts like a textile display.

Hanging on a wall or dividing a room this Flexible Led Curtain gives the amazing effect of a soft, drapable curtain which doubles as high resolution display.

This display can be folded, curved, pend and transformed freely to take on almost any shape. you could use it for a bed or coach cover or transform you curtain into your super size TV.

Actually this curtain is targeted for companies in the show or exhibition business that will appreciate the easy installation of large presentation displays and the light weight of this display saving shipping cost compared to conventional display technologies in such dimensions.

Have a look at the video to see how flexible this display is, you will be amazed.

Almost any video format that is used on a computer screen can be send to this textile display. Imagine using your curtain as computer monitor. Although the flexible LED curtain can be ordered, I don’t think it’s affordable for private use unless you have a very high salary.

But there is always hope the price comes down sooner or later – look at the price erosion of the LCD TVs a couple of years back and now. This curtain display may be a dream for now but could be in our homes in a few years and bring a soft touch to our big screens.

Another amazing way on how to ‘soften electronic’ or should I say ‘electrify textiles’ has been worked out by Leah Buechley, an Embroidered LED matrix providing a soft display for your next outfit.

Leah’s ‘proof of concept’ demonstrates how to create a textile display by using both sides of a fabric to realize a 2 layer (top and bottom) PCB. The textile itself serves as an insulator between the two layers of conductive yarns. This allows the creation of a grid or matrix without making electrical contact on the crossing points.

The top side of the fabric has conductive threads in vertical rows while the thread on the underside (coming from the bobbin) is conventional, none conductive thread. The bottom side of the fabric has the horizontal rows made of conductive thread by swapping the thread in the bobbin with the conductive type.

To bring the electrical (conductive) connection from the backside of the fabric to the top where it is needed to solder the LEDs, conductive thread is stitched in this area creating a so called ‘via’. You can see them in the photo as brownish areas next to the LEDs.

The textile LED matrix comes to life via Leah’s LiliPad Arduino, giving our future e-fashion designer everything needed to design the next Interactive Clothing collection.

Leah’s demonstration of an Embroidered LED matrix highlights (pun indented) how textile displays could be made, at least for one-off, tailor made e-fashion creations.

[Hack A Day via Make Blog]

When it comes to fashion accessories the boys have usually less choice than the girls. One of the fashion accessories where men can express his individuality is a tie.

Single color ties for the more conservative occasions, patterned ties for the smart casual and the myriad of printed ties to express any kind of mood, taste, preferences and what else you have.

Enlighted, a company founded by Janet Cooke Hansen to create her own “dream job” as a light-up clothing designer offers the Power Ties™ collection adding a new light dimension to ties.

Next to a couple of mono color ties with light points a Printed Circuit Board Tie with 5 red LEDs attracted my attention.

This cute tie makes a great gift for engineers, computer scientists, and gadget fan-boys.

This is not to say engineer and gadget girls can not use this tie as well. Many girls ‘borrow’ a tie from their boyfriends once in a while to spice up the outfit.

The circuit board pattern is printed on the fabric, but the lights in this design come to live and flash in a variety of different patterns.

The Power Ties are powered by a pair of CR2032 coin cell batteries hidden on the backside of the tie and last for around 10 hours blinking and flashing.

Giving the Printed Circuit Board Power Tie to your electronic or software wizard might give you higher priority when you need help for your next Wearable Electronic project.

A little bit of bribery, especially when looking that cute can not harm

The Printed circuit board tie is available for $60.- directly by Enlighted.

Enlighted has many more enlightened accessories in their program and in case the girls under our readers feel a little discriminated by our boys coverage, have a look at the many light-up bras Enlighten offers.

Maybe these bras are not the best outfit to wear around the office but you will definitely attract your engineering friends attention with one of those bras during the next party.

A everyday situation: you are too late, dump everything in your bag, rush to your first appointment of the day and then it hits you: forgot the cell-phone or keys or wallet, iPod or Blackberry you name it, all the essential stuff we need for our daily survival in the digital and real world.

Our gadgets are getting smaller and until all those function are integrated in our clothing we have to double check before leaving the house.

Truly intelligent clothing might not be ready for another few years but a group of students at Canada’s Simon Fraser University has invented a handbag that tells if something is missing in the bag before hitting the road.

The six women behind this fabulous idea are: Ginny Mesina, Sherry Li, Nasrin Roya, Huma Zaidi, Lillian Tam and Jenny Vi.

The project called ‘LadyBag‘ is using RFID technology to detect items in the bag. If something is missing the LadyBag will show the items icon on the LED display on the outside of the LadyBag.

To let the bag know what it should look for each item to be tracked needs an RFID tag insert or attach to it. Such RFID tags are very common today, you can find them on virtually all items in shops. In case you forget to pay for an item you will hear an alarm going off the moment you attempt to leave the shop.

The same principle is used in the LadyBag, just the other way around: if something is not inside the bag when leaving home the display on the bags outside will show what is missing inside. Cool, very cool idea.

But the ladies in Canada didn’t stop with the ‘don’t forget me’ feature for a LadyBag and added another interactive element to the bag: emotions.

The LED display on the outside of the bag reflects the user’s emotional state through the display of emoticons. Emotional state is determined through the interactions with the bag that are registered through physical sensors.

Hugging the sides, the bag’s display will show a happy face emoticon. Fiddling with the zipper shows a nervous emoticon.

This team has done a fabulous job in their project and all the project material is available online on the LadyBag project site. A wealth of information starting from user insight studies to idea generation and prototyping.

The LadyBag project has been published almost two years ago and I am surprised that this great idea has not been taken up by someone from the industry to work on a commercial product.

For more information of the LadyBag and inspirational reading click over to the project site, reading material I highly recommend.

Would you like being waked up by light coming out of the pillow, gently increasing it’s light intensity simulating the natural sunrise?

If you are tired being hit by an alarm clock that gives off a shocking noise you might want to swap your alarm clock with the glo Pillow.

The glo Pillow is the brain child of Ian Walton and teammate Eoin McNally, two inventive designer from Ireland.

Designed as an alternative to the traditional alarm clock to help combat the pressures of the ’24 hour’ lifestyle many of us are living today, the glo Pillow moves you over from sweet dream land to reality in a natural and more peaceful way.

The pillow uses an LED fabric substrate below the surface to wake the user with light. This LED fabric also functions as a display, showing the time on the pillows surface.

40 minutes before the pre-set alarm time the pillow begins to glow and gently brings the user out of sleep. This natural waking process helps to set the circadian rhythm or ‘body clock’ and results in more healthy sleep/wake patterns.

Although the glo Pillow is ‘just’ a design study it might be not too long to get it commercialized if companies pick this idea up.

LED fabric substrates are basically available in the form of Philips Lumalive, NYX Jacket display and other demonstrations we have see like the Jacket from Kanye West or the Jackets of Moritz Waldemeyer for OK Go.

The glo Pillow is a very innovative idea which has been recognized in Time Magazines ‘Best Inventions of 2007‘.

Anyone willing to pick up this idea and get it to the market? It would be a great relieve to everyone who hates that shocking alarm going off every morning killing the sweetest dreams.