How smart was the last shirt you bought? If you start talking about high quality fabrics, mother of pearl buttons, bespoke hand sewing and rigid collars, you need to stop and remember that you’re on a tech site!
When we talk about smart shirts, we’re referring to something like the shirt created by German-based startup design and Internet of Things firm Colorfy. What they’ve created for a new Kickstarter campaign, called 10Eleven9, is a shirt that fuses “distinctive fashion and beautiful engineering.”
“This shirt, which looks like a traditional shirt, has the newest technology integrated,” Julia Seeler, senior account manager at Colorfy, told Digital Trends. “It’s the first smart shirt of its kind. Our goal is to bring a garment to the market which not only looks good, but supports the user in various ways to make his life easier and more convenient.”
That means seven pockets, which can be accessed through an invisible opening in the shirt’s side seam. Two of these are even RFID-blocking pockets, designed to protect your passport and credit cards from potential high-tech scams. There are also the obligatory plethora of smart sensors (of course!), including heart rate sensors, posture sensor and breathing measurements — which can be read through either vibrating feedback or push notifications. Ever been on a hot date and wished you had a shirt that would tell you to sit straighter and calm down? Now it no longer has to remain a slightly odd fantasy!
“The shirt is only the start of what we would like to achieve,” Seeler continued. “We want to build a platform with the shirt as a reference implementation. We want to create a platform with a shirt as the newest wearable interface to interact with smart devices and smart home concepts.”
According to Seeler, the team went through a whopping 25 different prototypes to create the perfect blend of comfort and tech. “Our goal is that the wearer has a great experience,” she said. “[We want] to achieve this from a very complex combination of embedded electronics and software integration.”
If you’re in the market for the 10Eleven9 smart shirt, you can currently place a Kickstarter pre-order for 149 euros ($165.) Shipping is set to take place in March 2018.