New clothes will become a your personal doctor. Is it believable? However, this is true.
Answer is the Smart fabric. Smart fabric is made of yarns most commonly made with silver which are woven into fabrics to act as sensors that detect electrical signals, acting as electrocardiograms and electromyograms to measure heart rate and muscle activity respectively. The silver can either be woven in throughout a piece of clothing or else through tapes or patches sewn into specific regions.
Because the detecting sensor is closer to our body than other devices, body signal is better to detected. Also, the advantage of this fabric is that we can check our body anytime because we always wear the clothes.
Signals are then transmitted to detectors such as apps on a smartphone or tablet so that information is easily carried by the wearer. The information collected can also be uploaded to the cloud or sent to a third party, such as a doctor. Baker thinks this line of clothing could revolutionize medical practices.
The versatility of smart fabrics has enabled their use to extend beyond everyday apparel to clothing such as edema socks and materials such as smart bandages. The data collected also extends beyond heart rates to more specific indicators such as inflammation and pressure.
When you before go to visit doctor, we should check the basic test such as blood pressure, body temperature and so on. However, when we wear the clothes, we can skip the basic test. It results to reduce test cost, and doctor will notice our body condition directly.
The versatility of smart fabrics has enabled their use to extend beyond everyday apparel to clothing such as edema socks and materials such as smart bandages. The data collected also extends beyond heart rates to more specific indicators such as inflammation and pressure.
Also, This smart fabric will be utilized to space suits. The technology range is unlimited.
If we develop this technology, it will make our life better.
This is an increasing interesting topic that brings a lot of different uses to the table. It was designed just to be use as sport wear, but can also be used for medical purposes, a variety or job purposes, or a motivator to help those overweight reach their goals. But as this starts to take off and become such a new technology, there comes the disruptive innovation issue. When it comes to things like this, we have to make sure that the data it is collecting is accurate and meaningful to the person using it, but if a doctor were able to look at it, it would be the same if they tested these things on yourself. Another important issue is privacy. With apps and information like this being recorded, what are the apps going to due with all of your health information?A major fear is that as more companies start to create more wearable technology, they will try to offset the prices of these by selling the health data that they are recording off of people to other companies like insurance companies. This would require people to pay more attention to the agreements that they make when they sign up for these apps or products in the first place, which most people don’t do.
Wearable products are becoming increasingly popular and very interesting to use for multiple purposes, but it needs to be clearly stated and easily understood what all the data from these sites are going to be used for and not tricking people into selling away their personal information for a discount on the product.
http://ww2.kqed.org/futureofyou/2015/04/02/why-smart-clothing-is-the-next-frontier-for-wearable-health-tech/
Smart fabric is the next generation of clothing. I do agree with you that it will make doctor visits much easier since these new clothes can measure all of the patients’ vitals prior to getting to the doctors. Not only this, but the clothes can keep track of vitals over a period of time such as heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature. There is no limit for these fabrics!
One major drawback about this “smart clothing” is definitely the price. What is the price that you would pay for this life changing fabric? Well, the new Polo smart shirt is selling for $295 (http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/20/9178923/ralph-laurens-polotech-smart-shirt-is-the-ultimate-preppy-tech). Is this the price you would pay for this revolutionizing technology?
It doesn’t just stop at helping us gage our health either. Google is in the making of true ‘smart fabric.” They are working on technology for shirts, pants, and other articles of clothing that will be responsive to touches, swipes, and taps just like a smartphone. Imagine controlling a television with your shirt or turning off the lights with the swipe of your pants! This is the direction Google is looking to take this smart fabric (http://nypost.com/2015/05/30/google-developing-smart-fabrics/). Like I said earlier, limitless!
Smart fabrics are a fascinating technology that seems to really becoming popular recently. With the new technology of 3D printing, creating clothing with precise specifications is easier than ever. This tool is very handy when creating an article of clothing with circuits and information being transmitted all throughout it.
In a recent TEDx talk I watched, a team at Drexel was designing a blouse that contained an energy harvesting antenna, superconductor, and conductive leads. All of these parts are made of wearable material that stretches and operates like normal clothing. Uses for these smart fabrics include, monitoring a pregnant woman’s belly for unusual signals, and rehabilitating gloves which helps those who have suffered hand injuries. These products are becoming very popular for clothing retailers to experiment with, and they should be coming to market in the next year or so.
Here’s the TEDx Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDCiCX78lFU
This blog reminded me of the PoloTech shirt that we talked about during class this semester. I think the technology will, overall, have a positive impact on our society. However, like Samantha said in her comment, I think this technology will be disruptive to technology. It is very easy to put too much reliance on this technology as it is only relates to one aspect of the overall human health.
The one issue I do see for the technology of these shirts is that they are very expensive. The Polotech shirt sells for $295 on their website. At this price point, there are cheaper options for this type of technology such as simple pedometers. It will be interesting to see if people are willing to buy this smart fabric or buy cheaper alternatives.
http://www.ralphlauren.com/product/index.jsp?productId=69917696&ab=rd_men_features_thepolotechshirt&utm_source=PaidSearch&utm_medium=Google&utm_campaign=G_Brand_Polo_Tech_Exact&002=2502554&004=22386892757&005=101745093437&utm_term=polo_tech_shirt&006=76929802277&007=Search&008&025=c&026&gclid=Cj0KEQjwkeiwBRCzmo-wiKL49pEBEiQAhvGKYbJUeZFYgPkvdkcMwy7vhZKcYfhnoCt66NtI9-bERtkaAhBt8P8HAQ
I found an interesting article that talked about how smart fabrics will soon become so advanced that it will be able to charge our electronics. Smart fabrics will be able to take our own energy and use it to charge products such as our iPhones and tablets. Frank Golding, a tech expert who used to work for Google, says that “wearable devices will soon transform our entire bodies into power sources. Video will be displayed on literally everything soon. TV sets of the future will be screenless frames through which holograms appear.”
I think that it’s really cool to think that we’re being so technologically advanced that we can use our clothes to check our heart rate and even charge our iphones.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2949952/The-clothes-charge-phone-Smart-fabrics-use-bodies-power-source-turning-kinetic-energy-electricity.html#ixzz3oJlpMOR6
This semester, I am taking a Kines jogging fitness class. One of the perks of the class is that they provide us with our own heart rate monitor that goes around our body, and a watch that lets me know what my max heart rate was for each jog, my average heart rate for each jog, how many calories I burned, etc. It has truly given me more motivation to get out and go for runs whenever I can, since it is so easy to detect and record my body’s reaction to the workouts. I can only imagine how much more I would be willing to make time for more exercising if I didn’t have to worry about whether my heart rate monitor band is in the right spot on my body or if it is detecting my heart rates yet, and so on. Having this type of information just from wearing your clothes would be super convenient, and in my opinions, a fun way to motivate myself to add in more workouts throughout my weeks. However, I can’t help but think about how disruptive this innovation will be to our society. Less people will feel the need to go in to their doctor’s offices to find out the information that our clothes will now be able to tell us. I’m all for trying out smart fabric for its convenience. I’m just interested in seeing where this new innovation will lead us when it comes to the health industry.