Smart Textile Summer School in Switzerland

The Swiss Textile College is offering this September a two week summer School course on Smart Textiles in Zürich / Switzerland.

As one of the leading European institutions for textile research & development, the Swiss Textile College aims to bring together students and professionals from different disciplines to learn the necessary theoretical and practical know-how needed to create ‘Smart Textiles’.

The course addresses students and professionals with different backgrounds (engineering, design, materials science…). It contains seminars, hands-on exercises, experiments and building of prototypes.

Looks like a good opportunity to jump start your eTextile knowledge after a hot summer break.

Maybe a little early to talk about planing end of summer activities when the summer hasn’t started yet but registration for this summer program ends on May 30th.

More details can be found via this link.

Adidas Performance Bra with HRM sensor

Adidas is renewing it’s drive into wearable tech with the launch of the Tennis Performance Bra as part of the Stella McCartney collection.

The Tennis Performance Bra features besides high performance textiles, integrated sensor patches at the front of the Bra’s band ready to be connected to the HRM sensor from the Adidas miCoach Fitness system.

Making use of the HRM detection capability is a matter of choice, the seamless integration of the sensor patches and the snap cover on the sensor connection is designed to look good and well designed without the HRM module connected.

It looks like Adidas is moving towards integrating sensing capability into their performance apparel by default, disregarding if the wearer will use this functionality or not. It’s made ready for the action but it is not a forced feature but a pleasant surprise if one decides to pick up a miCoach module, plug it into the outfit and start recording the physical activities – be it for fun or for a serious fitness build up.

From the early days onwards my opinion has been that one day certain wearable tech features should be build into every garment, should be there and if I what to use it – snap on the (electrical) brain power to establish the link to the smart (phone) stuff in my pocket.

Sensing functions like ECG, motion, temperature or respiration could be very well become a standard feature, a ‘ready for action’ label on sport apparel. Sensors are relatively low cost and relatively low complexity add-on components which should make it suitable to fit the established apparel fabrication methods.

DIY eTextiles – creating a natural link between tech and textiles

In this week’s eTextile DIY article I like to introduce you to Fio, a designer and maker of awesome things like the textile projects I have found on her website.

My favorite design in Fio’s portfolio is the E-embroidery image. It is not the first time embroidery has been combined with LED light but this particular design jumped at me because of the discrete, seamless integration of light points.

I love the concept to light up – literally – a old tradition craft like making embroidery images with active light elements which can be programmed to light up via light sensor detecting the approaching night or a temperature activated light effect or motion sensor to activate the lights when a person approaches the image.

Incorporating light elements by blending them seamless and naturally into a design like Fio has done in her E-embroidery image is as important as the technical ‘specification / functionality’ of eTextile designs.

Designing with wearable technology requires a good portion of aesthetic considerations besides the technical needs to create a natural relationship between techno and textiles.

Check out Fio’s digital/electric portfolio for more inspiration.

Electrifying Fabrics

Wearable power is on the top of my search list and each time I stumble across news out of the research kitchen I can not help but to share the latest news.

Undeniable, wearable power, using materials that act and look like ordinary fabric that either generates or stores electrical energy will ultimately be THE killer application, or I should say killer material, humanity is able to create.

Kinetic energy harvesting and energy storage with a material like fabric not only can electrify our outfit it will open much more doors to electricity production, storage and uses in areas we can only dream off today.

Textile surfaces on sofas, chairs or car seats that generate electricity just by sitting on them, the same seat covers acting as battery ….. curtains which not only give privacy or shade but recharge all kind of electronic devices around.

OK – down to reality and a very promising development by a team of Scientists at the Drexel University. Lead Scientist Yury Gogotsi and his colleagues propose to impregnate woven Cotton or Polyester fabric with porous carbon powder to transform these fabrics into electrical super capacitors to store electrical energy.

The nature of porous carbon powder provides a very large surface area on a tiny powder grain, essentially increasing the capacity of such formed super electrodes by a factor of 400-700 times compared to previously reported storage capacity over the same surface area.

The carbon powder can be applied by printing or dip-coating of woven fabric as well whereby the powder is filling the natural spaces between the fibers in the yarn and between yarn strands in a woven structure. This process is not altering the feel of the fabric significantly.

That all sounds great and simple but as most of the research studies – there are still some practical issues to be solved before this (and many other wearable power technologies) can be scaled up for volume production.

[via: EE Times]

Cycling in style – Sporty Supaheroe jacket

Light animated cycling apparel are on course to become the latest trend in technology enhanced clothing.

The advantage of active-light elements for cycling apparel is a greater visibility at night and with it a much lower risk for cyclists to be over run by a car.

UTOPE, a cooperation between Wolfgang Langeder (CEO and Designer of Utope) and Stretchable Circuits / Fraunhofer IZM came up with the Sporty Supaheroe jacket, a stylish looking piece of clothing loaded with the latest technologies.

The most visible part of the Sporty Supaheroe jacket it the 64 RGB-LED flexible display placed in segments on the front, back and shoulder part, capable of painting millions of colors on this jacket.

The colors and illumination pattern is corresponding to the movement via an acceleration sensor and a 3D-gyroscope, merging the jackets appearance with the movement of the wearer.

Another neat feature is the visual link between a smartphone stowed away in the jacket pocket. Incoming calls are signaled with a light pattern on the jackets outside.

Besides creating cool light pattern in sync to movement, this system could be programmed to indicate a slow down with red lights on the back of the jacket or when tilting to either side could indicate a right or left turn.

Can you buy the Sporty Supaheroe jacket? Not yet but UTOPE will launch a menswear collection merging innovative technologies with elements from sportswear and traditional menswear clothing within 2012.

[via: Gizmag]

Wearable sensing for sport activities

Professional as well as fitness sport apparel look like to become a prime area for wearable technology integration.

In the past few month I have seen a increase in research and development activities for integrated sensory functions in sport apparel and accessories.

Using ‘smart shirts’ to capture the body condition of athletes is one area where wearable, integrated sensor will shine in the near future. Integrating sensing capabilities into apparel provides the most convenient solution, taking away manual measurements or wiring up the body before hitting the sports ground.

Other areas in which wearable sensing becomes highly interesting is motion capturing during training activities to improve pitching or swinging.

Besides the high interest of using motion monitoring in Baseball training, golf is another area that relies on the swing accuracy.

A company called SensoGlove has developed the – you guessed it – SensoGlove, smart electronic dashed away on the backhand side of the glove. Once the control unit got the perfect pressure data fed into it, it will monitor your swing capability by getting your actual applied pressure from the gloves integrated sensors.

For golf enthusiasts a perfect training aid, taking away the need to have a trainer watching the practice swings.

This is one of the many examples we see popping up in the market where wearable tech can clearly demonstrate it’s usefulness in the commercial market.

eTextile Tutorial – Audience Jacket

One of my favorite wearable tech resources is OCAD’s (Ontario College of Art & Design University) Social Body Lab headed by one of the most prominent persons in the wearable tech space – Kate Hartman, co-creator of the LilyPad XBee and Assistant Professor of Wearable & Mobile Technology at OCAD.

Examples of the amazing works coming out of the Social Body Lab are the Stock Market Lingerie by Erin Lewis, the Belly Dancer Costume by Loretta Faveri or the Breath Scarf by Hilary Hayes to name a few.

During my recent scan of the Social Body Lab site the Audience Jacket Tutorial caught my attention instantly as it demonstrates highly complex wearable techniques in astonishing details and simplicity.

This tutorial explains the steps needed to form a complex system with components like the LilyPad Mainboard, LilyPad XBee and LilyPad Accelerometer and the importance of a well planned layout for the conductive traces to ensures a hassle free routing of electricity on a garment. Not a easy task even for seasoned eTextile designer.

Reading through the tutorial I am fascinated by the detailed explanation organized in easy to follow steps and the well structured recourse links for materials, the configuration of the XBee link, the ‘copy-paste’ software code, upload procedures and settings on the computer, cut pattern for the garment, ……. It’s an amazingly well organized tutorial.

How does the Audience Jacket work? Accelerometers in the jacket’s sleeve transmit movement to a computer which replays recorded sound of hundreds of cheers, claps or “Boooo” depending on the arm movement.

The Audience Jacket serves as vehicle to teach a great part of eTextile system design and prototyping. If you follow this tutorial you learn in no time all the essentials of eTextile crafting and get rewarded with a big applause from your Audience (Jacket).