Smart clothes found in the market today have sensors sticking out of them in various places, making them cumbersome and not really “wearable.”
Pireta, a UK-based startup, has developed a unique free-form process to add durable, conductive, metallic patterns directly into textiles without changing the fabric feel or performance. Pireta’s technology allows electronic systems to be assembled and interconnected on a wide range of fabrics, enabling a new generation of truly wearable smart garments and e-textiles. The wearable electronics become more discreet, as the electrodes are integrated into the fabric.
Related Gore and Bonbouton Collaborate for Smart Fabrics and Digital Health Applications
“Pireta’s highly innovative process attaches a thin, highly-durable metallic layer at the fibre level, resulting in excellent conductivity but with no impact on the performance of the textile. This means that electronics can be integrated into stretchable, breathable, washable smart garments that can be worn close to the body with ease and comfort, making them truly wearable,” Pireta says.
Pireta’s process attaches a thin, highly-durable metallic layer at the fiber level. This results in excellent conductivity but has no impact on the performance of the textile. Electronics can be integrated into stretchable, breathable, washable smart garments that can be worn close to the body with ease and comfort, making them – what the company calls “truly wearable,” reports Forbes.
“Wearable technology is on the cusp of a major transformation. Wearable products are evolving from rigid devices – such as smartwatches and wrist bands – toward genuinely wearable smart garments based on electronic textiles or ‘e-textiles’,” says Pireta.
“Unlike existing methods, our technology has no impact on the handle, drape, stretch or breathability of the fabric, enabling a new generation of truly wearable smart garments and e-textiles.”
Related Are Smart Fabrics the Future of Fashion?
WT | Wearable Technologies Conference in San Francisco on July 9-10
The most innovative wearables event will be back on July 9-10 in beautiful San Francisco at SEMICON West to celebrate the 34th edition of the WT | Wearable Technologies Conference Series. Topics include data analytics in professional sports, prevention, treatment and rehabilitation with wearables, the future of digital health, medication and adherence, smart patches, workflow optimization and workforce safety and much more – featuring international leaders and experts of the wearables industry´s biggest names including Abbott, Autodesk, Datwyler, Kopin, Maxim Integrated, Multek, NFLPA, Omron, SharkDreams, Qualcomm, and many more. Register now to be part of #WTUS19