Preview
Niche market becomes mainstream The smart textiles market is complex
and growing rapidly. Key growth areas for the industry include healthcare, sports and the military. WTiN defines smart textiles as textiles with a conductive component that have the ability to interact and/or react with their user or the environment. Some smart textiles can even adapt to user behaviour. The smart textiles market was initially a niche area of academic research that soon started attracting the attention of forward-thinking and established businesses. Today, it has become one of the most promising fields of expansion for textiles, where academic researchers, start-ups and consolidated businesses try to solve some of the most compelling challenges that have so far hindered the consistent expansion of smart fabrics. The shift within manufacturing towards the production of medium and high-tech products plays into the hands of the sector. This trend was driven by an increasing consumer demand for electronics due to a global move towards home working, remote learning and ecommerce – propelled by Covid-19. This transition towards higher-value technology helped to fuel economic recovery in the second half of 2020, after the initial downturn during the beginning of the pandemic. One area seeing considerable growth because of this is the sports & fitness sector. Due to social-distancing and stay-at-home measures during the height of the pandemic, we saw a shift towards digital fitness. Sports tech products such as connected fitness apps and wearables (ie Fitbit and Garmin) aimed at helping users stay in shape became increasingly popular. For example, a report by Statista found that health and fitness apps were downloaded 593m times during quarter one (Q1) 2020. This trend has translated into the smart textiles space with companies such as AiQ, DiPulse Prevayl and Catapult developing integrated fitness clothing to monitor and analyse cadence, posture and precise positioning to improve sports performance. In the coming years, we are likely to see an increase and more diverse range of medium and
Sports tech products such as connected fitness apps and wearables aimed at helping users stay in shape have become increasingly popular
high-tech connected and personalised sports products. As mentioned, the Covid-19 pandemic also created an environment where healthtech could thrive due to the demand for virtual care options and the need for effective connection and communication in the global healthcare industry. For example, companies such as Hexoskin and Myant have created wearable solutions through a combination of textile-based hardware and software platforms. The textile-based hardware consists of smart clothing integrated with sensors and actuators to monitor physiological signs and patient activities remotely. The data from these systems can be transmitted to a software platform (ie Hexoskin
Connected Health Platform or Myant’s SKIIN Textile Computing Platform) for analysis of a patient’s health and wellbeing. These systems can enable medical assessments at the point of care, which gives healthcare providers access to rapid diagnostic information to enable early intervention. However, the smart textiles market whilst seeing success, is also experiencing many challenges and barriers to adoption. These challenges centre around the difficulty in manufacturing to scale, cost and a lack of regulations. Additionally, a knowledge gap still exists between technology experts and textile professionals when it comes to developing scalable, profitable and efficient smart textile products.
16
Powered by FlippingBook