Smart Clothes and Accessories

Smart Clothes and Accessories

We use tools and machines to augment our efficiency and comfort. The driving factor for the development of these gadgets has shifted from the saving of time, to space, to energy, and to health. While the gadgets became tinier, they also became smart. The wearable smart gadgets are gradually replacing the jewelry as the former helps protect the health while the latter is a mere decoration. The fabric used for making dress and accessories has been incorporated with various kinds of smart features. Chromophorous fabric is engineered to produce variations in its color and patterns through a specific app and system. Such fabric is weaved with fibers which are spun with micro wires and color changing pigments. Research has also generated ultrafine e-thread. This thread is used to embroider washable antenna in outfits enabling them to wirelessly transmit signals and control smart devices. Levi’s makes jacket that can call a taxi. Samsung makes suit, which switches on a cellphone. Pizza Hut has sneakers that pause the TV. Undershirt that retains the warmth of our body has been made smart by knitting sensors of heat and an ultrafine net of tubes for controlled circulation of warm or cold air through its fabric. The glabrous (hairless) regions of our body such as palms and soles radiate heat. Smart shoes use conducting plastics to diffuse the heat in and out of our bodies through its sole. Spacesuits protect the astronauts from thermal shocks by maintaining a convection of some liquid within their layers. These were too heavy and so lightweight smart textile, which can adjust the heat passing through it, has been developed. The marine animal squid is known to modify the color of visible light reflected by it. Smart textile imitates this ability albeit for a larger wavelength i.e. infrared (IR), which is analog of heat. Such smart textile is prepared by using the fibers of hydrophobic as well as hydrophilic synthetic materials, which are coated with conducting carbon nanotube (CNT). Heat and humidity from the sweat of person wearing it warps this combination of hydrophobic and hydrophilic fibers. Distortion caused by this warping collapses the strands of yarn. It opens pores in fabric and heat radiates out through these pores. Warping also changes the response of the coating to the transmittance of IR. When the textile is cold or dry, the fibers expand. The gaps get squeezed and the escape of heat is reduced. The characteristics of smart textile can be tuned to prevent or permit the transmission of IR radiation through it. So, it becomes a dynamic switch that regulates the heat passing across it. Smart clothing and wearables such as jackets, socks, and undergarments, which are in proximity to vital organs and wide areas of the skin have overtaken smart jewelry. Smart garments can track heart rate, respiratory rate, body-temperature, Oxygen-level in blood, distance run, breathing rate, stress level, emotions, air quality and UV index. These garments do not flaunt technology but are actually high-tech and their sensors are often wirelessly connected to parent systems. Touch or gesture by the wearer links him to specific apps and facilitates him execute a payment.