What are smart clothes and why wear them

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The future has already arrived - these things know more about your body than you do.

What is smart clothes

Smart clothes are wardrobe items to which electronic components are added: motion, heart rate, pressure, light, temperature sensors, as well as antennas, vibration motors, Bluetooth transmitters and microcomputers. These components are woven into the fabric itself, along with the wires that provide power, or simply sewn into special pockets.

To use smart clothes, special applications are most often required, with which they are synchronized via Bluetooth. Things collect data about the human body and the conditions in which it is, and send it to a smartphone, where applications analyze the information, show it to the user and suggest some actions to improve the condition.

For the first time, electronic components began to be sewn into clothes back in the 19th century. For example, in the American newspapers of 1884 one can find Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 51, Number 128, 19 July 1884 mentions of dresses for girls with built-in batteries for headlamps. With the rise of computer technology in the 1980s, many brands were looking for ways to connect clothing and computers. So, in 1986, Puma released The First Computerized Running Shoe 1986: The Puma COMDEX RS Computer sneakers with motion sensors and a timer that could determine how many steps a person took, how much distance he ran and how many calories he burned.

But this area of high-tech gained rapid development only by the mid-2010s, when sensors, repeaters and other devices became cheap enough and tiny enough that they could be sewn in dozens into any wardrobe items or even woven into fabric.

What items of clothing are smart

Sneakers

Nike has smart shoes that adjust the fit to fit your foot perfectly.

90 Minutes Ultra Smart from Xiaomi can count steps and distance, as well as determine whether a person is running, walking or cycling.

The UA HOVR Sonic Connected sneakers measure your cadence, cadence and distance traveled.

Socks

Sensoria Fitness offers socks with special sensors that read the position of your feet and help you learn to run properly to avoid injury.

For babies, there are Owlet Smart Socks that track your baby's heart rate and breathing in real time, and when problems are detected, they notify parents using LEDs, sounds and smartphone notifications. According to the creators, the device helps detect signs of dozens of diseases - from pneumonia to heart problems.

Pants

The Japanese company Xenoma has developed pants that can detect the position of the legs in space and capture movement using internal sensors. This technology can find applications in medicine, sports, as well as the gaming and film industries.

T-shirts and T-shirts

Hexoskin Smart Shirt can detect heart rate and respiration, heart rate variability, breathing volume, steps and calories.

Ralph Lauren once released a PoloTech T-shirt that can read your heart rate as well as breathing rate and depth.

Blazers and jackets

In 2014, Samsung introduced a smart suit that has an NFC chip embedded in its sleeve. It can be used to switch the phone to silent mode with one touch, open the door to the office or pay at the store.

And Levi’s has a Commuter X Jacquard jacket with a touch device in the sleeve that notifies you of calls and messages. You can also use it to change the track in the player or answer a call.

Ministry of Supply offers the Mercury Intelligent Heated Jacket. They determine the optimal temperature for a person and automatically heat up, providing him with warmth.

Dresses

Designer Rainbow Winters' Eye of the Storm dress ignites when a loud sound is heard nearby. And inventor Kitty Jung created the Saturn dress. When a person spins, Saturn's rings appear on clothes.

Sleeves and stockings

The AIO Smart Sleeve uses electrocardiography to analyze your heartbeat and suggests informed lifestyle and dietary changes.

Ohmatex ApS develops a compression stocking for people with swollen limbs. It allows you to constantly monitor the condition of a person's leg. The patient can be at home, and the stocking will send information about his health directly to the attending physician, which will help in the diagnosis and treatment.

Bras

Exisom develops smart sports bras that can read heart rate, heart rate variability, and breathing rate and depth.

Why wear smart clothes

To exercise more effectively

Most smart clothing is made for sports, mainly running, strength and cardio, and cycling. Thanks to the electronic stuffing of things, athletes learn more about their body, learn how to perform exercises correctly and monitor their health.

The most common functions of these garments include measuring heart rate, counting steps, tracking body position and muscle tension, and determining breathing rate.

So, yoga pants Nadi X not only fix the position of the legs when performing different poses, but also suggest with the help of vibration exactly where a person makes a mistake.

And Athos shorts and T-shirts let you know which muscles the athlete uses during exercise and at what intensity. Based on this data, the mobile app then gives advice on how to improve the results.

To maintain or improve health

Another area of application for smart clothing is health care. As a rule, these are things designed to prevent specific diseases.

There are, for example, smart swimwear Neviano. They are equipped with an ultraviolet sensor and know how to notify the owner when to apply sunscreen.

And Siren socks are designed for people with diabetes. Temperature sensors detect when dangerous inflammations appear on the feet, and the socks send a notification to the smartphone.

To be fashionable

Smart clothes are also found in the field of fashion. For example, Tommy Hilfiger once launched the Tommy Jeans Xplore clothing line. Items are equipped with wear sensors, and their owners, using special applications, can participate in a geolocation game that gives access to exclusive events.

In 2014, designers Anouk Vippres and Niccolo Casas showed the Synapse Dress with sensors and LEDs. It changes color depending on the electrical currents of the body.

What are the prospects

So far, the smart apparel industry is still in its infancy: things are still too expensive, there are not so many available models. However, experts believe that in 2020, the supply of smart clothes will exceed 10 million products, and the market size will be approximately $ 15 billion.

There are many prospects for this technology. For those who are fond of or professionally involved in sports, it will help to better understand how the body works, and will allow you to bring the exercise technique to perfection. And all this is possible even without a personal trainer.

In medicine, smart clothing can help identify diseases and disorders before they even appear. This data can be sent directly to the clinic, so that by the time a person reaches it, the doctors already have all the necessary information.

There are also applications for sensors and chips in clothing in everyday life. For example, touch-sensitive buttons for controlling playback could become a functional part of the design, and NFC devices in the sleeves would allow you to pay for purchases with a swipe.

It is likely that over the next few years we will see hundreds of new models of different styles and purposes.