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No-touch smart fabric device is introduced
March 24th, 2025
A touchless, finger gesture-detecting fabric could “revolutionize e-textiles,” researchers say. Photo: Nottingham Trent University. Touch-sensitive clothing capable of controlling devices via touchscreen-like finger taps and swipes on the fabric is impressive, but a touchless finger-gesture-detecting fabric has now been developed that offers a new functionality. The experimental textile is being developed by scientists from Nottingham Trent […]
Making wearable tech a reality
March 10th, 2025
This image demonstrates cap touch using conductive yarns that are knit as part of the garment. It highlights a potential integration of hard goods and electronics with soft goods and wearables. The prototype features a small circuit board attached to a section of knit fabric with conductive yarns. Photo: Priority Designs. We are in the […]
E-textiles can be electronic musical instruments
September 18th, 2024
Researchers Dr. Sophie Skach and Dr. Victor Shepardson have been doing research into fabrics, as part of their work in the Intelligent Instruments Lab, University of Iceland. Recently, they devised a set of smart fabrics that can produce sounds like musical instruments when people handle them, producing sounds comparable to ASMR scratches and water sloshes. These fabrics can sense […]
BRM E-WEBBINGS® in development for NASA applications
July 15th, 2024
Bally Ribbon Mills (BRM) E-WEBBINGS® are currently being developed and tested for use as stress and strain sensors for NASA’s Artemis program. The company’s specialized engineered woven fabrics, including its proprietary E-WEBBINGS® e-textile, are designed to serve as a customizable base for a range of smart textiles used in aerospace and defense applications, such as […]
AFFOA announces new PAFF awards
June 10th, 2024
The Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA) announced the selection of Loomia and Z-Polymers as the first two Product Accelerator for Functional Fabrics (PAFF) program awardees. This first-of-its-kind initiative is designed to enable organizations to leverage AFFOA’s capabilities and personnel, at no direct cost, to increase the speed to market of Advanced Functional Fabric (AFF) products […]
Liquid electronics: It’s not an oxymoron
March 25th, 2024
The words “liquid” and “electronics” are not, in general, words you want to see together. I have pictures in my head of warnings having to do with using an electric hair dryer in the bathtub. That may get a laugh today, but who among us can explain how wearables crafted from e-textiles can be safe […]
Tackling the tough challenges in e-textiles
March 25th, 2024
A textile sensor patch with a self-sufficient energy supply developed by the Technische Universitat Dresden. Photo: Marie O’Mahony. Can printed electronics (PE) and flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) offer e-textiles direction that overcomes the design, manufacturing and sustainability challenges facing the industry? The annual conference and trade show LOPEC (Large-area, Organic & Printed Electronics Convention) was recently […]
The long road to smart fabric standards
December 11th, 2023
Loomia makes soft, flexible circuit technology to be incorporated into a variety of textile end products. Photo: Loomia. “Smart textiles” that utilize specialized polymers, chemical additives or electronics to react with their environment are changing textile technology in the 21st century. E-textiles or “wearables” have been particularly promising due to their ability to monitor and communicate […]
Taking on the wearables challenges
November 13th, 2023
AFFOA showed a newly developed material for smart products in their booth on the show floor at Advanced Textiles Expo in Orlando. It describes the material as a “flexible, roll-to-roll, inkjet manufacturable, RF metamaterial for wearables.” Photo: Janet Preus. The Emerging Technologies Conference, part of the Advanced Textiles Association’s annual Expo, revealed the diversity in […]
Scientists devise a sensing sweater for industrial robots
June 12th, 2023
Photo: Provided by the researchers, Carnegie Mellon University. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have designed a smart sweater for a robot that can immediately stop moving if it accidentally makes contact with an adjacent human worker. To keep from accidentally hurting their human coworkers, many industrial robots have sensors that detect physical contact with people or other […]