Year 1955 was important in history. That year, the first Guinness Book of World Records was published in the UK, Disneyland opened in California and many similar events followed. In the world of technology, two legends who were to transform computing as we have known it, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, were born. Interestingly, another revolutionary event happened in 1955, which many at that time did not take seriously but which later changed the world of computers like never before — the world’s first wearable computer was conceived by mathematician and scientist Edward O Thorp to predict roulette, which later led to a joint venture at MIT with Claude Shannon, the father of information theory, in 1960-61.

It took many decades for wearables to go mass market and grab consumer attention. The segment is still limited to wrist bands and similar smart gadgets. But tech market experts hope the arrival of smart fabrics will give the sector the much needed fillip and make it useful for hitherto unforeseen applications. For starters, smart fabrics or electronic textiles are cloth/fabric that sport digital elements embedded in them and can perform electronic functions, from heating up the fabric to collecting and transferring health data.

In fact, this is not new; the idea of threads (metallic) that can be conductive dates back to the 1600s. Historians say in the Elizabethan era, weavers would attach gold threads to fabric to make them shine. But more pronounced applications of smart fabrics came much later. In the early 1990s, researchers at MIT were experimenting with smart apparel for the US military. In 1998, fashion designer Sabine Seymour introduced Moondial, which had silicon components. Still, a major breakthrough was absent. The Georgia Tech Motherboard shirt made its appearance in 2003, boosting research in smart garments. The shirt developed by Combat Casualty Care is billed as the “intelligent” garment for the 21st Century. It uses optical fibre to detect bullet wounds, has special sensors and can collect data from the body to check vital signs during combat.

More innovations

Many similar experiments followed. In 2014 came Dupont’s stretchable and conductive ink, which was later used to make wearable tech and textile circuits by Bebop Sensors. Soon, with the boom in smartphone and fitness technologies and allied wearable products including ‘ath-leisure’ clothes, etc, the idea of smart fabrics received much-needed momentum. A clutch of textile and tech companies, designers and entrepreneurs are now working on fabrics that have electronic parts and can interact with computers.

A major segment in the smart fabric sector is active smart textiles, which use sensors to track changes in the external environment and interact accordingly with the body and with third parties. For instance, an active smart cloth can change colours based on the surroundings, stay water-resistant, and store heat and regulate impact. Obviously, most of the beneficiaries of such products have been militaries and allied segments. Now, with smart fabrics going mass market, the way people dress up is set to undergo a transformation. Soon, your clothes can be your body reader, screen for entertainment, news magazine, health and fitness tracker and a lot more.

Also, e-textile experts say these clothes will be able to map your health stats and communicate them to, say, your doctor or fitness trainer or a government agency or an insurance company that wants to protect you from medical emergencies. For now, products such as heated jackets (from a company called Ravean, for one) are available in the market. The Ravean jacket can help you control the jacket’s internal temperature, charge your mobile device and more. OMSignal’s smart sports bras aim for a lot more than offering traditional support; it can track and store users’ fitness data as well. Another smart bra, developed by a Singaporean scientist Scott Fan, can help send SOS alerts to the police when someone is attacked.

There’s more. In healthcare, smart clothing, suggests a Gartner report, helps enhance care by embedding electronics into shirts, blankets, bandages and similar essential tools. The data they track can help doctors micro-manage patients and the disease more efficiently. Already, China, Korea and the US are leading research and development in smart fabrics. Companies such as Samsung, Google, OMSignal, Hexo Skin and Under Armour are experimenting to make clothes as smart as the phone, according to a DigitalTrends analysis. Just a few weeks ago, scientists in Seoul developed a textile-based display technology that they claim is washable. It does not need an external power source to function. It addresses some of the most important hiccoughs in smart textiles — reliance on external power sources and the chances of water or moisture getting into the cloth and damaging it. The scientists from Seoul used integrated polymer solar cells (PSCs) with organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) to power the fabric.

Recently, scientists at the University of Washington said that fabrics can store “high-density data” without using electricity and can be washed just like any other fabric. A recent report in IDG’s Network World quoted Shyam Gollakota, associate professor in the Paul G Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, as saying: “You can think of the fabric as a hard disk.” In their experiment, the scientists stored a door-unlocking passcode on a conductive fabric which they attached to a typical shirt’s sleeve and the person was able to open the door just by swiping the cuff over it. Scientists say that’s just one of the myriad uses and soon bodysuits that can guard, gauge and guide your are going to be in the market.

Sounds like Black Panther’s body suit is going to be in your favourite cloth-seller’s shelf sooner than you’d expected. Market experts say the smart-fabric industry now stands at some $900 million and is expected to grow to $6 billion by 2025. That’s just a ballpark assessment. Apostles of smart fabrics say the real numbers will be much higher and will explode once consumers realise their potential as these products can help reduce wastage significantly. An estimate shows clothes worth more than $500 billion become unusable every year. That means, as an analysis suggested, nearly 90 per cent of all fashion is just wasted. Smart fabric can help people make clothes that they would need and that would fit them perfectly as it involved technology-enabled measurements and components that can be recycled and reused.

With companies such as Google actively pursuing the smart fabrics idea (Google’s Project Jacquard is an interactive textiles venture with Levi’s. It makes connected smart jackets that allow users to control music, answer calls, use GPS and do a lot more,as TechCrunch reported recently) and companies in fitness, healthcare, athletics and military-ware pumping good monies into it, the future of smart fabrics looks impeccable and robust.

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