Collaborate Disseminate
Plenty of people just plain dislike wearing jewelry, even (or especially) smart watches. Nevertheless, they’d like to have biofeedback like everybody else. Well, we watch-less ones have something to look …read more Continue reading Sew-able Carbon Nanotube Thread Could Spin a Lot of Awesome
[Mikst] has been working on wearable electronics and sensors for a long time, and shared the results of a different kind of bend sensor that fits directly onto the skin. …read more Continue reading Skin-Mounted Wearable Bend Sensor Gets Close and Personal
Let’s face it: pretty much everything about e-textiles is fiddly. If wearables were easy, more people would probably work in that space. But whereas most circuit prototyping is done in …read more Continue reading Flexible Prototyping for E-Textiles That Doesn’t Cost an Arm and a Leg
It’s interesting to see the different form-factors that people utilize for their portable biometric sensors. We’re seeing heart rate monitors and other biometric sensors integrated into watches, earbuds, headbands, sports bras, and all sorts of other garments and accessories. [Gabi] took an intriguing approach, integrating an electrocardiogram (ECG) into a …read more
How do you prototype e-textiles? Any way you can that doesn’t drive you insane or waste precious conductive thread. We can’t imagine an easier way to breadboard wearables than this appropriately-named ThreadBoard.
If you’ve never played around with e-textiles, they can be quite fiddly to prototype. Of course, copper wires …read more
Some folks bring out an heirloom table runner when they have company, but what if you sewed your own and made it musical? We’d never put it away! [kAi CHENG] has an Instructable about how to recreate his melodic material, and there is a link to his website, which describes …read more
The great irony of the social media revolution is that it’s not very social at all. Users browse through people’s pictures in the middle of the night while laying in bed, and tap out their approval with all the emotion of clearing their spam folder. Many boast of hundreds or …read more
Continue reading Social Media Jacket Puts Your Likes On Your Sleeve
Finding a killer application for e-textiles is the realm of the hacker and within that realm, anything goes. Whether it’s protecting your digital privacy with signal shielding, generating audio with a wearable BeagleBone or 555 timer, or making your favorite garment into an antenna, the eTextile Spring Break is testing out ways to combine electronics and fabric.
You may be asking yourself “What are e-textiles good for?”. Well, that’s an excellent question and likely the most common one facing the industry today. I’m afraid I won’t be able to give a definitive answer. As an e-textile practitioner, I too am …read more
The practice of developing wearable electronics offers a lot of opportunity for new connector designs and techniques for embedding electronics. Questions like these will eventually come up: How will this PCB attach to that conductive fabric circuit reliably? What’s the best way to transition from wire to this woven conductive trim? What’s the best way to integrate this light element into this garment while still maintaining flexibility?
Mika Satomi and Hannah-Perner Wilson of Kobakant are innovators in this arena and inspire many with their prolific documentation while they ask themselves questions similar to these. Their work is always geared towards …read more
Continue reading Bumblebee Breakout, a DIY Wearable Connector
What if you could unlock a door with your shirtsleeve, or code a secret message into your tie? This could soon be a thing, because researchers at the University of Washington have created a fabric that can store data without any electronics whatsoever. The fabric can be washed, dried, and even ironed without losing data. Oh, and it’s way cheaper than RFID.
By harnessing the ferromagnetic properties of conductive thread, [Justin Chen] and [Shyam Gollakota] have proved the ability to store bit strings and 2D images through magnetization. The team used an embroidery machine to lay down thread in dense …read more
Continue reading Your Next Wearable May Not Need Electricity