Smart Fabrics & E-Textiles – Revolutionary Industry Innovations

It’s hard to imagine life without fabrics and textiles, considering clothing is a basic human need. From clothes and bedding to home décor and fittings, we are literally covered in and surrounded by some type of fabric almost always.

What if there was a way to integrate technology into this ever-present material to make it even more functional? What if we could tell our outfit to regulate the temperature, and it actually responds, for example?

That’s where smart fabrics and electronic textiles (e-textiles) come into play. Leveraging the Internet of Things (IoT) technology, smart textiles use everyday materials like clothes, uniforms, carpets, and bedding to collect, record, and transmit data over the Internet.

In this article, we x-ray textile-based wearable technology to better understand how they work, their various types, their applications, and how these revolutionary innovations transform various industries.

What Are Smart Fabrics & E-Textiles?

Smart fabrics or e-textiles (also called smart garments) are textiles and fabrics embedded with digital components like sensors, actuators, batteries, or electronic chips. Digital components in textiles and fabrics can be visible or invisible, depending on the integration method. The idea is to weave, layer, print, or “hide” the components to increase functionality in some way.

These components use mechanical, electrical, chemical, thermal, and magnetic detection systems to perceive, process, and communicate various signals. By integrating technology into fabrics, users can enjoy enhanced safety, better performance, or increased aesthetics.

What started in the early 1900s with MIT students researching ways to develop technology-based apparel for military application now has plenty of uses in many industries. Thanks to cheaper-to-produce and smaller electronic devices, smart textiles and fabrics are no longer limited to military uses and other sectors like healthcare and fashion.

In fact, the introduction of conductive yarns in the smart textile space paved the way for previously unimaginable applications of smart fabrics. And while integrating technology into fabrics is still relatively new, the global smart fabrics market for 2022 was estimated at $4.5 billion, and by 2030, the market size is expected to reach $20.6 billion.

These figures indicate huge potential in the smart textile market, as it opens up new opportunities in many industries (including those that currently use textiles and sectors that will use them due to new possibilities).

Smart Textile Types

Generally, smart fabrics are categorized based on two broad functions, including aesthetics and performance.

Aesthetic Smart Textiles

Aesthetic smart textiles use sensors and other electronic components for design and fashion purposes. Some common examples are clothes and footwear that light up, change color, or produce sounds depending on weather conditions, body heat, ambiance, and other factors.

Performance Smart Textiles

Performance smart textiles are designed to improve or regulate certain performance functions like controlling and monitoring heart rate, temperature, breathing, and perspiration. Smart fabrics and textiles in this category are further grouped into passive, active, and ultra-smart textiles.

1. Passive Smart Textile

Passive smart textiles are embedded with sensors, meaning they can only sense external conditions. For example, the design of a cooling cloth can help sweat evaporate quickly, but it does not actively produce coolness. Other examples of passive smart textiles are waterproof fabrics, UV-protective clothing, plasma-treated clothing, and conductive fibers.

2. Active Smart Textile

In addition to sensing external conditions, active smart textiles can react or respond to stimuli from the surrounding. That’s because these intelligent fabrics are embedded with sensors and actuators that enable them to detect and interpret a wide range of data from the environment.

Typical examples include fabrics that alter their shapes (shape memory materials) and those that can store temperature data and control heat.

3. Ultra-Smart Textile

These are equipped with units that enable powerful functions similar to the human brain, such as reasoning, cognition, and activating capacities. The materials and components in ultra-smart textiles can sense, respond, monitor, and adapt to thermal, chemical, magnetic, mechanical, and other environmental conditions. Spacesuits and musical jackets are common examples of ultra-smart textiles.

Smart Clothing and the Environment

No doubt, the fashion and textile industry strongly impacts the environment in several ways, including resource consumption, water pollution, waste production, and greenhouse gas emissions.

However, smart connected clothing is a revolutionary innovation that tends to produce less waste compared to regular garment production. Smart fabrics are easily traceable, thanks to the embedded electronic components. This allows manufacturers to stay on top of inventory, minimizing overproduction.

Besides managing inventory, e-textile technology should make disposing and recycling much easier, especially in areas where smart waste management solutions are implemented. Because smart clothing can regulate and adapt to weather changes, people generally need fewer smart-connected clothes, leading to less textile waste.

In addition to reducing textile waste, companies use more synthetic and engineered materials to produce smart textiles and fabrics. In fact, Spandex ― the synthetic fiber known as Lycra in other climes ― is arguably the most commonly used material for manufacturing smart clothing because of its outstanding elasticity.

This means manufacturers can focus more on using synthetic materials to make smart garments instead of animal materials. This option ensures animal protection and preserves the ecology.

Applications of Smart Fabrics

The applications of smart textiles cut across a wide range of sectors; many of them are groundbreaking innovations with tremendous positive effects. Here are a few ways intelligent textiles are transforming some sectors and making life a lot easier for people.

Healthcare

• Smart socks: Diabetic patients can use smart socks to get timely warnings on the onset of inflammation. The socks have components that monitor the feet and give temperature updates via a mobile app.
• Smart carpets: People with mobility issues can benefit from smart carpets designed to detect and report falls. The detectors in the carpet can provide early warning of chemical spillages and fire outbreaks. And because it can detect when unfamiliar feet walk over it, a smart carpet can send warning signals of potential intruders in the home.

Emergency Services

• Thermal comfort: As cities invest in smart water systems, they must also consider the vital role of firefighters not only in the aspect of water use but also in thermal comfort and occupational safety. With smart clothing, firefighters, rescuers, and other emergency service providers can cope with the extreme conditions they usually work in. However, smart clothing for emergency services is an emerging field of research, with companies like Smart PSA in the forefront of developing smart personal protective equipment for firefighters and police forces.
• Phase-changing materials: Special coating inside certain garments help improve comfort during physically straining emergency service. For example, a phase-changing suit can cool surgeons down during prolonged operations. Interestingly, many everyday garments, like sports footwear and underwear, already have this feature. Cooling vests are common examples of phase-changing materials.

Sports

• Hexoskin Smart Shirt: Ralph Lauren’s PoloTech was a game-changer in digital sports wearables. The Hexoskin Smart Shirt offers similar features with multiple sensors that track key biometric data, like breathing depth, heart rate, calories burned, and cadence. It streams the data directly to the wearer’s smartphone, enabling real-time health monitoring.
• Smart sports bra: Advanced smart bras respond to breast movements, changing their properties to support the breast, prevent pain, and reduce breast sagging in active women. The bra can stiffen its cups to restrict breast movement or relax them when it detects low movement. However, the most common smart bra options can monitor heart rate and provide continuous feedback via Bluetooth connectivity.

Fashion

• Color-changing garments: The Shadow Shifter T-Shirt is designed to change colors in response to temperature changes. Touching the shirt can leave a thermal handprint on the cloth. Heat-sensors are cleverly incorporated into the shirts to produce this effect, allowing wearers to express themselves through their clothing choice.

Communication

• Social media: In 2017, JanSport experimented with high-tech backpacks that can connect to and share social media pages, website links, and more through programmable smart fabrics. In more recent times, brands like Jacquard have developed the Samsonite Konnect-i backpack with improved capabilities to make backpacking more fun.
• Entertainment: A collaboration of Google (tech giant) and Levi (renowned apparel maker) produced Jacquard, a digital platform designed for intelligent apparel and footwear. Jacquard denim jackets have built-in touch controls that allow seamless communication with a smartphone app via conductive wire and Bluetooth. The smart fabric allows users to easily play their favorite music on their smartphones and perform other operations.

Future Possibilities

Even though their positive effects rapidly transform lives, businesses, and industries, smart fabrics and e-textiles are relatively new technology. This means there are still plenty of prospects to be explored, and the possibilities are endless.

Presently, some smart clothing can charge small gadgets like mobile phones and smartwatches. Researchers at Nottingham Trent University designed an e-textile embedded with thousands of tiny solar batteries called photovoltaic cells to harness and convert energy from the sun into electricity. These cells can be integrated into jackets, backpacks, and other clothing items.

Interestingly, a new study shows the possibility of using smart fabrics to convert body movements into electricity strong enough to charge smartphones on the go.

In the health sector, smart bras are known for reading heart rates and other biometric data. However, recent discoveries suggest that smart bras can help in early breast cancer detection by placing tiny battery-operated ultrasound sensors in bras. This innovation can speed up breast cancer diagnosis and potentially save many lives.

The field of smart fabrics and e-textiles is continuously opening up new opportunities and markets and is set to take the textile sector to a whole new level. Hopefully, scientists and manufacturers will develop more products made from intelligent fabrics and textiles with a direct bearing on household uses in the coming years.

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