Wearable Technology

An electronic textile with a large-area display that could have applications in communications, navigation and healthcare is described in Nature. The textile is flexible, breathable and durable, making it an ideal material for practical uses.

Many athletes, from football players to equestrians, rely on helmets to protect their heads from impacts or falls. However, a loose or improperly fitted helmet could leave them vulnerable to traumatic brain injuries. Now, researchers have developed a highly sensitive pressure sensor cap that, when worn under a helmet, could help reveal whether the headgear is a perfect fit.

Electronic textiles offer revolutionary new opportunities in various fields, in particular healthcare. But to be sustainable, they need to be made of renewable materials. A research team now presents a thread made of conductive cellulose, which offers fascinating and practical possibilities for electronic textiles.

IDTechEx recently attended a webinar in which Dupont outlined its portfolio of materials for wearable technology, especially electronic skin patches. This includes stretchable conductive inks, adhesives and substrates, marketed under the 'Liveo' and 'Intexar' brands.

Nanoengineers have developed a "wearable microgrid" that harvests and stores energy from the human body to power small electronics. It consists of three main parts: sweat-powered biofuel cells, motion-powered devices called triboelectric generators, and energy-storing supercapacitors. All parts are flexible, washable and can be screen printed onto clothing.

The intelliFLEX Innovation Alliance is proud to present the Virtual CPES2021, March 17-19, 2021. The Canadian Printed and flexible Electronics Symposium will focus on the most relevant, state of the art technical topics and global networking.

Are your product designs meeting users' expectations? Today's medical end users, whether professional or consumer, expect their healthcare and wellness delivery systems and devices to be intuitive, easy to use and reliable, regardless of when and where they are utilized.

Researchers report significant enhancements in preventing heat leakage in the flexible body heat harvester they first reported in 2017 and updated in 2020. The harvesters use heat energy from the human body to power wearable technologies - think of smart watches that measure your heart rate, blood oxygen, glucose and other health parameters - that never need to have their batteries recharged.

DZP Technologies is a developer and provider of solutions for emerging technologies, such as printed and wearable electronics. Thomas Lynch, a Technology Analyst at IDTechEx, spoke to Dr Zlatka Stoeva, the managing director, about their work with electrically conductive adhesives.

A lot of us recycle our old textiles, but few of us know that they are very difficult to re-use, and often end up in landfills anyway. Now, researchers have developed a method that converts cotton into sugar, that in turn can be turned into spandex, nylon or ethanol.

Researchers in Japan have developed the first wearable devices to precisely monitor jaundice, a yellowing of the skin caused by elevated bilirubin levels in the blood that can cause severe medical conditions in newborns.

Advances in wearable devices have enabled e-textiles, which fuse lightweight and comfortable textiles with smart electronics, and are garnering attention as the next-generation wearable technology. In particular, fiber electronic devices endowed with electrical properties, while retaining the specific characteristics of textiles, are key elements in manufacturing e-textiles.

On 24-25th of February 2021 IDTechEx attended the Innovations in Large Area Electronics (InnoLAE) conference. Conference attendees were a mix of primarily early-stage companies and academics. This premium article divides a selection of the most interesting and/or commercially relevant talks into 4 sections

Scientists have created a temporary tattoo with light-emitting technology used in TV and smartphone screens, paving the way for a new type of "smart tattoo" with a range of potential uses.

One day, a wearable, bioelectronic device could wirelessly transmit a person's vital signs — potentially providing critical information for early detection of health issues such as COVID-19 or heart disease — to a healthcare provider, eliminating the need for an in-person visit while also saving lives.

Immersion Corporation announces the latest progress on creating a standard for haptics. This latest development provides a recommended approach for content distributors to add haptic playback capability to mobile apps and expand the distribution of haptic-enhanced content to viewers.

Investment and development in haptics is accelerating, and the supply chain providing the actuators, drivers and software behind these key components is evolving at a faster pace every year. IDTechEx's latest report on haptics, "Haptics 2021-2031: Technologies, Market & Players", predicts that the industry will be worth nearly $5bn in 2025.

Stretchable electronic circuits are critical for soft robotics, wearable technologies, and biomedical applications. The current ways of making them, though, have limited their potential.

A new preparation technique fabricates thin, silicone-based patches that rapidly wick water away from the skin. The technique could reduce the redness and itching caused by wearable biosensors that trap sweat beneath them.

An eco-friendly energy-harvesting smart sensor could help make roads safer by identifying potentially dangerous driver behaviour.