IDTechEx Research: E-Textiles Enabling Wearables

Copyright © 2016 IDTechEx | www.IDTechEx.com

E-Textiles Enabling WearablesForecasts, Technologies, Trends & Opportunities

Raghu Das, CEO, IDTechEx [email protected]


idtechex.com/research

E-Textiles 2016-2026

E-Textiles: Electronic Textiles

www.IDTechEx.com/textiles


A Brief History of Wearables

1600 1800 1950 1970 1985 20001900 2004 2008 2012 2013 2014 2015

• For over 200 years wearable technology has mainly consisted of watches, followed more recently by audio (headphones). The occasional fun piece like the calculator watch –remember that?

• A $20 Billion+ market • But the last five years has seen tremendous change with many new products. Self lacing shoes anyone?


E-Textiles in the market today

Respiration sensors detecting changes in dimensions of the conductive track induced by breathing

Impact sensor by BeBop. Here 6 layers of various stretchable inks are printed

Activity tracking functionality (HRM, EMG, etc) by Clothing+ and DuPont

Vista Medical

Rest Devices

BlueSpark


Sensors Energy harvestingand energy storage

Lighting Identification Heating

Body electrode (eg: ECG electrocardiogram– assess electrical and muscle functions of the heart))

Pressure sensor

Stretch sensor

Photovoltaic

Piezoelectric

Battery

Supercapacitor

LED integration

Woven optical fibers for large area lighting

RFID tags Resistive heaters

Applications are more diverse than you think


IP creation and licensing

Technical solutions Product design and ecosystem

Assembly

Research institutes

Engineering consultants

Supply the components specifically designed for smart fabric

Ship the final product but outsource the manufacturing

Mass production for OEMs

Eg:

FraunhoferCETEMMSAOhmatexIMECHOLST

Eg:

Ohmatex (e.g. conductive textile cable)OraFootfall HeartbeatsPrimo1DInteractive Wear AG

Eg:

Adidas (Textronics)AthosCarre (Hexoskin)MyontecOmsignalSensoriaVivoenoticsWearable Life ScienceWe:ex

Eg:

Clothing+ / Jabil (Claims more than 50 million units shipped)Flextronics (Claims to make 85% of wearable technology)

Dynamic Business models

MATERIALS COMPANIES

MATERIALS COMPANIES


Textiles vs InksTextiles Inks

Advantages

• If the yarns used have appropriate physical properties, they can be used with traditional textile equipment (weaving/knitting machines) for clothing with no additional machinery cost

• With certain textile or construction types, no additional encapsulation is needed, allowing direct integration into textile

• Much greater design flexibility, allowing for the construction of detailed circuits and 2D areas (e.g. electrodes)

• New developments have enabled superior flexibility, and improved physical properties

Disadvantages

• Physical properties are limited, due to hysteresis/breakdown on extensive or repeated stretching and limiting 1D form factor

• Difficult to construct detailed circuitry from textiles, due to lack of resolution

• Cost of textiles is too high for extensive consumer product integration with current use cases. Therefore, only very limited commercial examples so far

• Currently, few commercial products (and small sales volumes), but this is mainly due to lack of development time since new ink releases

• Washability is a problem, but can be managed with encapsulation (TPU, etc.)

• Price is still an issue with final products, but this is expected to improve as companies find validated use cases


E-Textiles materials

Textile only45%

Textile & others21%

Others only4%

Inks & others8%

Inks only8%

Textile & inks8%

All three7%

Fibres, yarnsand/or textiles

76%

Others28%

Inks18%

No materials speciality10%

Percentage of e-textile players using each material typeSource: IDTechEx research interviews and study of over 80 players in the space

Conductive plastics, connectors, anti statics etc.


idtechex.com/researchE-Textiles: Electronic Textiles

E- Textiles 2016- 2026

www.IDTechEx.com/textiles

Further research on • Flexible and Printed Sensors• Conductive Inks• Graphene• Wearable Technology

http://www.idtechex.com/textiles