Analysis Of Smart Clothing From "Spy Impossible": The Upcoming 2016 Of Smart Clothing Industry

The "man God", "Tom God", has won the box office full of the "5 in the spy".

In the movie, people are also seeing the surging waves of intelligence, and the series of intelligent black technologies, which are "cool, bright, cock and deep fried". No matter whether it is the quick printing of 3D face, the computer display of paper or second, or the recognition of gait, and the unlocking of palmprint windows, all the human brain holes are opened up.

Among them, especially the intelligence of brother Tang

The most cool.

How to make clothing smart?

This diving suit is not only equipped with oxygen filling function, but also can monitor the oxygen content in the body in real time. It can also synchronize with the computer to indicate the degree of oxygen filling, so as to confirm the time of the wearer underwater and ensure safety.

Based on this kind of "super power", it makes it important to rescue the brother of Tom in the drama.

In the play, we are taking the lead. Outside the drama is also catching the eye. It makes people want to get their income in seconds, so that "my mother no longer needs to worry about my swimming will be anoxic."

Well, today we'll pick up the intelligence.

This is something.

The so-called smart clothing usually refers to the dual functions of perception and response. It can not only perceive changes in external environment or internal state, but also respond to such changes in real time through feedback mechanism.

This has been perfectly interpreted in his soup suit.

So how does this dress achieve "intelligence"? At present, it mainly adopts the following two ways: one is the use of smart clothing materials, including shape memory materials, phase change materials, color changing materials and irritation reaction hydrogels; the other is the introduction of sensing technology, micro electronic technology and information technology into everyday clothing, including conductive materials, flexible sensors, low-power chip technology, low-power wireless communication technology, and power supply.

Taking the smart clothing "KarmaChameleon" developed by Professor Joanna Berzowska, Canada's University of Canada, for example, the clothing can collect energy from the human body and store it, then use these energy and change its visual properties according to the state of motion.

The fabric used directly embeds electronic devices and computing function components into fibers instead of simply attached to fabric surfaces.

The tissue contains multi-layer polymer materials, which interact with each other no matter when they shrink or extend.

At the same time, the development of intelligent textile technology after more than 10 years of research has also added power to the emergence and popularization of various forms of smart clothing.

Intelligence

The technology of flexible sensor made of materials, for example, applies carbon based conductive material to elastic fabric substrate. It can change electrical signals with the fabric's stretching and springback, and combine unique algorithm to analyze and process electrical signals, so as to realize the sensing function.

This conductive soft fabric looks like ordinary cloth, which can be washed, dried and dried, so that it can be easily made into many styles of smart clothes.

At present, the team developed the technology has developed an intelligent underpants, which can record male physiological changes, natural impulses duration, and frequency information in 24 hours according to the change of male "golden parts". Another smart bra can be used to monitor women's movement, breathing, heart rate and emotional state. An intelligent belt is also paid attention to by weight loss people. When wearing it, it can monitor its waist circumference every day, and the system will remind you to control diet and strengthen exercise.

What is the market space of smart clothing?

Then, what kind of market space is there in the field of smart clothing? What kind of business opportunities and challenges are there?

In fact, in the field of smart wear, the emergence and development of smart clothing is no longer a rare thing in science fiction.

Since the advent of wearable multimedia computer in MIT Media Lab in 1990s, scholars at home and abroad have begun to pay attention to the research of wearable technology and smart clothing.

Before 1997, that is the beginning of smart clothing development, the smart clothing at that time did not have good wearability, only the carrier of the realization of the value of science and technology. Then in the year of 2000, people began to realize the importance of integrating fashion and smart materials into smart clothing design. However, the pace of research and development was relatively slow, so that the focus of smart wearer was more projected on smart wearer, smart watch and smart glasses as the carrier, and the attention to smart clothing was also weakened.

However, the huge market capacity of the clothing industry still leaves room for the smart Jew's Jedi counterattack.

Especially in recent years, the sales volume of China's clothing market is increasing year by year.

According to statistics, in 2009-2011 years, the retail sales of China's clothing market increased from 900 billion yuan to 13446 billion yuan, the annual compound growth rate reached 22.25%. In 2012, under the influence of the European debt crisis and the downward trend of domestic macro-economic situation, the growth rate slowed down, increasing by only 7.83% over the same period last year.

It is expected that in the coming years, with the gradual improvement of domestic and foreign economic situation, the growth of retail sales in China's clothing market will rise to 10%-15% level.

The healthy development of the clothing market, coupled with the trend of intelligent technology, the combination of the two will undoubtedly make the prospect of "smart clothing" become "limitless".

Even compared with the general function of clothing, the price of smart clothing is higher, which does not affect its market potential.

Moreover, China is rapidly moving towards high-end luxury consumer countries, and its interest in fresh gadgets is strong.

Then, what is the smart clothing with proper function and fashion elements? Why should we not have a market?

2016 will usher in the outbreak of smart clothing industry

With Google and other technology leaders throwing their attention on smart clothing again, it coincides with the cool appearance of the Tang's diving suit. Smart clothing has already attracted the attention of the industry and the consumer market in all directions.

It is not hard to imagine that in the coming 2016, the development and sales of smart clothing will enter a new development speedway. Its light will also cover the wearer of smart watches and smart glasses, and become a representative of the new wave of development in the field of smart wear.

As predicted by Gartner's report, smart clothing will jump from the freezing state of nearly zero shipments in 2013 and 2014 to 26 million expected in 2016, becoming one of the largest shipments in the field of smart wear.

In this regard, smart watches, smart bracelet, smart glasses and other products have been developed in a short period of time. If we can not break through the technical links of the industry chain, we will inevitably be restricted in the form of product technology and form performance, which will lead to the "homogenization" of products at a certain level.

Therefore, as the undertaker of smart bracelet and other equipment, driving the wearable device continues to move forward, smart clothing will undoubtedly be the best choice.

This also means that with the rise of smart clothing, the wearable device industry will usher in a new round of development.

On the other hand, the market capacity of clothing is huge. Both the brand's market operation experience and distribution channels are relatively mature. Compared with those hardware manufacturers who have built up from scratch, they are much larger in communication and penetration.

Again, it has something to do with the attributes of the product.

Clothing is not only a necessary part of human body, but also has a closer contact with human body. For the functional realization of wearable devices, the data collected by human body is more accurate than the current algorithm, such as bracelet and watch.

This improves the user experience of wearable devices to a certain extent, and will play a positive role in the promotion and development of wearable devices.

How do we build smart clothes?

Google has joined hands with Levi's to launch smart clothing: the high-tech giant Google Corporation (Google) announces that it is cooperating with the world-renowned Cowboy brand Levi (s), making smart clothing with special textile touch screen control functions.

The new technology developed by Google's advanced technology project department is called "jacquard project". This technology enables the conductive fiber to be embedded in any type of textile to produce intelligent fabrics, and the button can be added to the clothes to add a super small computing system with buttons, so that wearable technology can be integrated into jeans, jackets, shirts and even underwear.

Google said that with this technology, any fabric woven fabric, from clothing to furniture and carpet, can be implanted with computer touch-screen control function.

Intelligent deformation clothing is equipped with Intel Curie wearable module: in order to demonstrate the potential of wearable module Curie, Intel jointly launched the two "responsive clothing" of Chromat, the sportswear designer of architecture.

What's unique is that these two smart clothes carry Intel's hardware platform Curie with the size of buttons only.

It uses sensors to collect human physiological signals such as heartbeat and body temperature, and pforms the clothes through the shape memory alloy integrated in the clothes.

These two clothes have been well received in the past 2016 spring summer New York fashion week.

Has the technology dawn of smart clothing arrived?

In response to the release of smart clothing technology at Google's June 2015 developer conference, Phoenix Satellite TV in Hongkong produced an issue entitled "smart fabric - Ultimate wearable device" in July 2015 through an exclusive interview with Professor Tao Xiaoming, Professor of textile and garment industry of the world intelligent textile expert, Hong Kong Polytech University.

The program points out that compared with other forms of wearable devices, clothing is a form of wearable device that is easier for consumers to accept.

The fabric with intelligent function looks different from ordinary clothes, but it can play its special function when needed.

Therefore, smart fabrics have great potential. Designers and engineers can freely display their imagination without limit, and can achieve boundless creative extension. Smart fabrics enable wearable devices to provide consumers with more intelligent, more human services.

First of all, the data acquisition function of smart clothing can be used for a long time, and all data can be obtained without interference under the premise of ensuring the comfort of users. Secondly, some smart fabrics have been washed and machine washed, and the maintenance of ordinary clothes is the same. This will greatly enhance the user experience and reduce the cost of use.

15 years ago, scientists began to study smart fabrics that could perceive the surrounding environment, including electricity, light and heat.

Through good substrate selection, the sensor has the functions of sensing external strain and pressure, and has the advantages of flexibility, large deformation, repeatability and fatigue resistance.

In addition to fabric sensors, flexible fabric PCB has also made great progress.

The pre stretched stretch yarn and insulating metal fiber are woven into the fabric structure. The new type of fabric printed circuit board is durable, breathable, soft and easy to change shape as ordinary cloth, and can also stretch and wash.

This fabric circuit has good electrical stability and less than 1% relative resistance change. It is not only resistant to washing and easy stretching, but also has more than one million cycles of life through a variety of extreme use tests, including resistance to 300% unidirectional tension and 150% dimensional impact testing.

These flexible sensors and circuit boards form intelligent fabrics. Some of them can test the force, pressure and deformation. Some of them can test the bioelectrical signals of the human body, thus providing conditions for doctors, sports coaches and so on to monitor the vital signs of patients and athletes in real time.

For example, special shoes for diabetic patients can test plantar pressure distribution under various conditions for patients with foot paralysis due to diabetes, early detection and avoidance of deep injury in the skeletal muscle junction layer, thereby avoiding possible ulceration and amputation in the future, and effectively help patients and doctors fight the impact of diabetes.

In addition, smart shoes and insoles with various sensors including pressure sensors can be integrated, and accurate gait and energy consumption analysis can be carried out based on pressure and other parameters. If there is a potential danger of sports injury, early warning can be made to make every step taken by the user healthier.

In addition, smart wearable clothing incorporating flexible fabric sensors can help users do breathing exercises, improve sleep and perform sleep apnea screening.

In a word, the current smart clothing has achieved the function of "communication" and "individual monitoring".

In the future, with the help of core algorithm, core data analysis and integrated information processing technology, smart clothing is likely to contribute to the research of group behavior, further promoting "clothing as an interactive platform", giving full play to the deep intelligence of wearable devices, and widely used in medical, health, sports, consumer and industrial markets.

Smart clothing development in China

At present, China's domestic enterprises are keen to grasp the coming wind tunnel of smart clothing industry, and try to start with intelligent wearable devices.

These enterprises, such as HUAWEI, Lenovo, 360, millet and other IT wind vane enterprises, there are many high-tech entrepreneurial team, they have an early layout, want to get a share in the smart wearable wave.

But unfortunately, the traditional clothing brand enterprises still have no strong awareness of the wave. Most of them are still on how to use the Internet + to improve the management level, ignoring the wave of smart clothing that will soon be subverted in the whole industry.

From the current market has been released wearable device products, mainly concentrated on smart bracelet, smart watches, smart glasses as the main carrier of wearable devices, the exploration still stays in the "Dai" field, "wear" products are few.

Why does this happen? As mentioned earlier, to achieve intelligent clothing, we must solve the problem of "wearability".

Flexible sensing technology is the most important step to achieve good wearability.

In order to realize the integration of sensors and clothing materials into the basic fabric of smart clothing, the sensing technology needs to have the following basic conditions: working in a low voltage and low power state for a long time; sensing all kinds of human physiological parameters and changing environmental parameters, such as temperature, humidity, pressure, sound, light, chemical parameters and other indicators.

At present, the world's intelligent terminal products are in an upward stage of development, and China, as a force that can not be underestimated in the new economy, has to make a breakthrough in the development of intelligent wearable new generation of information industry.

Therefore, some universities, research institutes and enterprises in China have carried out research on flexible sensing technology and developed industrial applications.

From the perspective of technology development in the whole industry, the CPU/MCU technology and flexible battery technology, which are necessary for the smart clothing industry chain, are now basically mature. The more important low-power communication technology, mobile Internet technology, and artificial intelligence technology, including cloud computing, have been developing rapidly. These will provide strong support for the vigorous development of China's intelligent clothing industry.

In my view, China's wearable device market will soon usher in a new round of high-speed growth, and the Chinese market will be the core of the global wearable device market because of its huge consumption crowd.

According to the "2015-2020 China smart wear industry Market Research Report" released, China's smart wearable device is expected to reach 171 million shipments in 2016.

Although this report is not necessarily accurate, with its reference, we can foresee that the capacity of the whole wearable device market can be said to be more than several times the report released by Shang PU. This also indicates that China's smart clothing industry will have a market prospect of 10 billion or even 100 billion in the future. Let's wait and see!