Review and Reappraisal of Smart Clothing

Abstract

Smart clothing is a "smart system" capable of sensing and communicating with environmental and the wearer's conditions and stimuli. A comprehensive review is presented on the research and developments related to smart clothing including technology developments, human aspects in smart clothing, and the applications. Recent smart clothing technology can be summarized as a tendency toward textilebased technology for each component: interface, communication, data management, energy management, and integrated circuits. Human aspects in smart clothing, even though some areas were not fully covered, were dealt with in terms of usability, functionality, durability, safety, comfort, and fashion. General applications of smart clothing developed so far include bio-monitoring clothing, MP3 player-adopted clothing, and photonic clothing.

Improving the sustainability of smart textiles

“…This includes anything from curtains that light up in the dark to odourfree socks or concrete reinforcements. The ability to recycle smart-textile products depends on the materials used and the level of integration between the textile and technological components (Mecheels et al , 2004;Tang and Stylios, 2006;Cho et al , 2010).…”

Printable low-cost sensor systems for healthcare smart textiles

“…1 It is pervasive, embedded and unobtrusive monitoring environment available as a function in textiles such as vest, bed sheets, pillow covers and caps. [1][2][3][4][5] Textiles offer durable platform for embedded sensor and communication systems, with the components stitched or woven into the fabric or attached to it in form of sensor and communication chip-sets. Individual electronics can be mounted on the textile and connected through wires that have been built in or manufactured in the textile itself.…”

Design, User Experience, and Usability. Theories, Methods, and Tools for Designing the User Experience

“…In contrast, smart clothing emphasizes the importance of clothing (Barfield et al, 2001). The components used in wearable technology are conventional and non-textile which oftentimes make them feel bulky and impeding (Cho, Lee & Cho, 2009). In contrast, smart clothing uses textiles in which electronic functions are embedded (Barfield et al, 2001).…”