A great way to gather power is via kinetic energy. Why not recollect energy while we are already moving? Enter the Amanda Parkes’ and Adam Kumpf’s .
This dress uses piezoelectric material creates a voltage when it is deformed like bent or twisted. An integrated rectifier circuit connects the strips to capacitors which store electrical charge and feed the electrical power to the coin batteries disguised as buttons.The creative power behind the Piezing, Amanda Parkes and Adam Kumpf are grad students at MIT Media Lab. Their Piezing power-dress was part of a runway fashion show last Friday at the ‘2nd Skin: Imaginative Designs in Digital & Analog Clothing’ at the Exploratorium in San Francisco.
Posted in: Dress, Runway, Tech Clothing Industry, Textiles, e-Textiles
Biodevices brings us the Vital Jacket. This garment is used to monitor ECG waves and Heart rate levels. This can be used for sports, fitness, and medical purposes.This beat traditional cumbersome methods and is a valid high quality solution. This allows for a free range of movement with no compromise to bio-feedback integrity.
There are currently two versions available, the HWM100 that stores data on a SD memory card for post-analysis on a PC. This version allows long term monitoring. Users can define heart rate limits and will be alerted through a vibration alarm embedded in the T-Shirt.
The second version is the HWM200 that allows realtime visualization where data is sent via Bluetooth to a PDA or smart phone.
This device will set you back $635.44 and ..read more
Posted in: Biodevices, Bluetooth, Intelligent Clothes, Shirt, Sports, Sportswear, Tech Clothing Industry, Vitals Monitoring, e-Textiles
Talia Elena Radford Cryns, creator of Ergoskin, is a student at the University for Applied Arts, Industrial Design, in Vienna – Austria. This design assists the wearer with a push to reinforce proper posture. The nano sensors embedded in the fabric detect the posture and provide skin impulses to indicate the status.This technology is great for office workers who intend to have decent posture but over the course of a work day let that slip a little. This can also be used for rehabilitation and medical purposes. This is a really interesting item. I look forward to seeing this develop further.
Posted in: Intelligent Clothes, Super Smart Fabrics, Tactile Feedback, Tech Clothing Industry, Textiles, Underwear, Vitals Monitoring
HearWear is a concept created by Younghui Kim and Milena Iossifova, uses the sound/noise level of the environment to create active color patterns on clothing or bags.These cool garments interact with ambient sounds and show the levels on the garment. The microphone and processor converts the sound levels into light via LEDS and EL wire.Despite its coolness, this may also have safety purposes too. Good Stuff.
Posted in: Audio Activated, Bags, Display, LED, Light Emmiting Fabric, Safety, Skirt, Tech Clothing Industry, Textiles
Konarka has taken the leap into the future. Power Plastic which can solve the mystery of flexible mass producible solar materials. Benefits of Power Plastic are the reasonable cost, light weight and flexible.Also a huge achievement by Konarka is the ink jet printable solar fabrication. ‘Demonstrating the use of Inkjet printing technology as a fabrication tool for highly efficient solar cells and sensors with small area requirements is a major milestone,’ commented Rick Hess, president and CEO at Konarka.
Hopefully all this progress will make this type of technology a mainstream item.
Posted in: Concept Design, Konarka, Solar Power, Tech Clothing Industry
For the next level of wearable technology, something has to give. 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 ..read more
Posted in: Concept Design, Super Smart Fabrics, Tech Clothing Industry
The O’Neill Walkie Talkie Jacket is on the way! Our first info about the upcoming Walkie-Talkie Jacket was back in July where we got pre-information first hand. Last week O’Neill launched a dedicated page on thier website for the H4 Wearable Electronic range. Featuring sleek styling and high-end fabrics, the Walkie-Talkie Jacket is targeted towards the adventures outdoor enthusiasts who venture in unexplored areas and needs to stay in contact with the group or base station. The H4 Walkie-Talkie Jacket is 100% compatible with the Motorola T5422 and should work with many other of Motorola’s 2-way radios.
The walkie-talkie connector is located in a chest pocket for save and ‘out-of-the-way’ storage of your 2-way radio to keep your hands free. The speaker as ..read more
Posted in: Jacket, News, O’Neill, Tech Clothing Industry, Techno Fashion, Two Way Radio
The Smart and Intelligent Textiles Conference organized by Intertech Pira is taking place in Prague between Dec. 11-12.
If you can come a day earlier to Prague, you can stop by The Nanotextiles Conference on Dec. 10th and hear how the latest developments in how Nano technology will shape the future of textiles.
The Smart and Intelligent Textiles Conference has diverse topics spanning the fashion world, represented by Angel Chang, Solar technology for Wearable Electronics as well as the view on Wearable Electronic from one of the biggest apparel and soft goods companies: The North Face.
Visiting this event will be an enrichment for everyone interested and/or active in the Wearable Electronic market.
To bridge the gab between now and the Smart and Inteligent Textiles Conference, I suggest having a look to the new ..read more
Posted in: Intertech Pira, News, Tech Clothing Industry, Trade Shows
