Get Started with eTextiles - eFashion, Wearable Electronics & Wearable Computers

eTextiles, wearable technology, and smart fabrics are still very much in its infancy in terms of mainstream use and a general understanding of what it is.

I recently hosted a workshop to introduce the idea of sewing with electronics. We had a fantastic round table discussion about the future of eTextiles and then made a really simple cuff (fabric bracelet) using a LED, conductive thread and a switch (press-stud) to switch the light on and off.

I thought it would be interesting to share our discussion as food for thought.

What is eTextiles?

In real simple terms, eTextiles are fabrics that allow the application of digital components. They are sometimes also called smart fabrics. Electronic components can either be woven into the fabric or applied on top. In our workshop we used 'traditional' fabric and sewed conductive thread into the fabric to conduct electricity to power the digital components (LED).

There are a number of uses for eTextiles and today we see them used in the medical, military and sports industries. There is also a lot of examples of eTextiles and digital wearables used in entertainment.

eTextiles is part of wearable technology. Wearables, as it is sometimes called, include gadgets and computers that a person can wear. We already know many such devices, such as digital hearing aids, smartphones, fitness trackers, panic buttons, fall monitors, and more.

The Right Skills

There is actually a lot of skills involved in designing and working with eTextiles and wearables. You need to understand electronics, coding, fabrics, design and the subject of the application of the eTextile project.

We need a variety of different people to take an interest in the development of wearable tech, so that we have a future of warm, welcoming and well-designed solutions and not a world of cold, hard electronics!

Here are some examples of eTextile and wearable tech in fashion in recent years:

• The SoundShirt by Cute Circuits
• The Printing Dress by Microsoft (2011)
• Ping the social media garment by Electric Foxy

If you're interested in this field, you can start from any direction and continue to add to your skills. Learn to sew, learn about electronics, learn to code, learn about ergonomic design (design fit for the human body) One of my pet hates (someone please solve this problem) are smartwatches for children. They all seem to be too big and lack functionality. My child doesn't want to play games on his watch, he wants something that will tell the time, count his steps, be an alarm AND be small enough to fit his arm and robust enough to withstand outdoor play.

Get Started

There are some good products on the market to get you started.

Electronics

We are big fans of Teknikio, that develops cute circuit boards which you can sew onto fabric and into projects.

Our fabric cuff for the eTextiles workshop was made with Teknikio components. You can just focus on the electronics part and then add a microcontroller later for coding. The Sensors and Spaces kit from Teknikio also introduces you to sensors to interact with the world around you.



Helen Leigh has also written a book about electronics for Craft kids, The Crafty Kids Guide to DIY Electronics: 20 Fun Projects for Makers, Crafters, and Everyone in Between; although I think it is fairly accessible to any beginner to the field of electronics.




We created a simple tapestry project to teach you how to sew LEDs in parallel.

Microcontrollers

Microcontrollers are small programmable computers and perfect for experimenting with wearables.

Lilypad Arduino was the first commercially available development platform for sewable electronics. It was developed by a group of engineers from MIT headed by Leah Buechley is an Associate Professor at the MIT Media Lab. Lilypad uses the Arduino platform and there are different components and kits available.




The micro:bit is a great microcontroller to use too. As you can code it using code blocks, the leap to text-based coding is less and you can concentrate on learning the concepts rather than the coding syntax. Our micro:bit in Wonderland book include several projects that links sewing, electronics and coding.




I hope this has inspired some to explore eTextiles further and get started with sewing with electronics.

I will write up the project from the workshop and share here soon.