IDTechEx Research presents e-textiles enabling wearables, including an overview of applications and materials.

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E-­Textiles Enabling Wearables
Forecasts, Technologies, Trends & Opportunities
Raghu Das, CEO, IDTechEx r.das@IDTechEx.com

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idtechex.com/research
E-­Textiles 2016-­2026
E-­Textiles: Electronic Textiles
www.IDTechEx.com/textiles

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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?

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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

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Sensors Energy
harvesting
and 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

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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:
Fraunhofer
CETEMMSA
Ohmatex
IMEC
HOLST
Eg:
Ohmatex (e.g.
conductive textile cable)
Ora
Footfall Heartbeats
Primo1D
Interactive Wear AG
Eg:
Adidas (Textronics)
Athos
Carre (Hexoskin)
Myontec
Omsignal
Sensoria
Vivoenotics
Wearable Life Science
We: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

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Textiles vs Inks
Textiles 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

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E-­Textiles materials
Textile only
45%
Textile &
others
21%
Others only
4%
Inks &
others
8%
Inks only
8%
Textile &
inks
8%
All three
7%
Fibres, yarns
and/or textiles
76%
Others
28%
Inks
18%
No materials
speciality
10%
Percentage of e-­textile players
using each material type
Source: IDTechEx research interviews and study of over 80 players in the space
Conductive plastics,
connectors, anti statics etc.

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idtechex.com/research
E-­Textiles: Electronic Textiles
E-­ Textiles 2016-­ 2026
www.IDTechEx.com/textiles
Further research on
• Flexible and Printed Sensors
• Conductive Inks
• Graphene
• Wearable Technology