NEWS
Wearables Reaches its 10th Year
PART 1 ; The Early Pioneers
To celebrate the first decade of wearable electronics in commercial applications Fibretronic is writing a series of articles tracing the history and development of this newest sector of the clothing industry.
In this first part we take a look at some of the early research and commercial products developed which laid the ground work for the further expansion of the industry into a broader range of technologies and applications.
One of the first academic institutions to consider the combination of clothing and electronics was MIT, through their wearable computing research programme1 during the 1990's led by Steve Mann and Thad Starner. The focus of this work was on the design of computing hardware in portable form factors, such as clothing and other wearable accessories. In particular, the use of clothing and textiles as a conduit for the user interface technology was groundbreaking. Some of their work on fabric interfaces using conductive textiles led to the spin-out company Intelligent Fashion Machines set up by Maggie Orth2.
Philips Electronics were one of the first companies to dedicate a research team to explore the commercial possibilities of merging electronics and clothing, stemming from Philips ‘Visions of the Future’ Project in the late 1990's. In 1997 a multidisciplinary team of engineers, fashion, textile and industrial designers was established at Philips Redhill (UK) to investigate potential consumer applications for wearable electronics. The results of their work are published in the excellent 'New Nomads' book released in 2000 3.
Audio Jacket with integrated headphones and audio player pocket (©Philips New Nomads 2000)
The team came up with a series of concept garments for various applications including; digital suits with built in keypads and communications capabilities for business and corporate clothing. Electronic sportswear with built-in audio controls, GPS and biometric sensors. Interactive clothing for children with embedded games and security systems. An Audio Jacket for youth clothing incorporating MP3 controls, cabling and headphones. The Audio Jacket housed an Audio player in an internal pocket with headphone cables running between this pocket and embedded headphones on the jacket hood via fabric loops.
Levis/Philips ICD+ jacket (July 2000)
Philips' objective was to team-up with leading garment brands to develop and commercialise some of the concepts developed in the New Nomads work. Their collaboration with Levi Strauss and the designer Massimo Osti in 1999 is probably the most well known outcome of their research work. The Levis ICD+ jacket was launched commercially in summer 2000 and this product is widely considered to be the first commercial wearable electronics garment 4.
ICD+ Jacket with device pockets for MP3 & Mobile Phone
The patented5 ICD jacket was designed in four styles and all had a removable wired harness connecting a range of portable electronic devices carried by young professional people. The jacket had strategic pockets for the Philips Xenium mobile phone, Rush MP3 player and earphones along with purpose built channels for the wiring through the garment. A central control module connected all the devices to allow the wearer to switch between them and control their separate functions.
ICD+ Jacket showing headphone cable channels
A hidden fabric loop and channel held the earphone wiring and routed it to the jacket hood where the earphones were housed until used. This product was ground breaking in that it was the first commercial offering where the garment was purpose designed to house and fully integrate a variety of consumer electronics. By keeping all the wiring hidden away inside the jacket it gave a clean and tidy finish and whilst allowing easy access to all the wearer’s electronic devices.
ICD+ Jacket with fabric loop for holding the headphone wires
Other early companies developing commercial wearables products were Reima and Softswitch Limited.
The Finnish company Reima launched their 'Smart Shout' product in June 2000 at the World Expo in Hannover. The 'Smart Shout' was developed by Clothing+, the Research Center for Wearable Technology in Kankaanpää, Finland, in cooperation with the Tampere University of Technology and Nokia 6,7. The product was a body belt designed for hands-free operation of mobile phones. The belt was tied from the waist to the shoulder allowing a mobile phone to be connected to a small processor inside a pocket of the belt. A loudspeakers and a microphone were placed on the shoulder of the belt. The user operates his mobile phone via three tags, dialing is not necessary and the hands remain free to use. Reima also transferred the same technology into snowboarding jackets.
Softswitch was launched in April 2000 and this was a fabric switching technology using layers of conductive and variably resistive textiles. The first applications of this technology were in audio control keypads in garments. In 2002 Softswitch and Burton Snowboards released the world's first commercial garment to incorporate a fabric control keypad. The 'Analog Clone MD' snowboarding jacket had integrated controls, wiring and pockets for the operation of a Sony mini-disc player. Burton Snowboards approached Apple with this jacket and in December 2002 Burton Snowboards, Softswitch and Apple launched the 'Amp' jacket designed for connection and operation of iPod players. The 'Amp' jacket became the first product in a widely expanding range of iPod compatible clothing and accessories which have since been developed by leading apparel brands over the last seven years...
More to follow in Part 2.
REFERENCES
2. International Fashion Machines
8. Burton Analog Clone MD Jacket
