Wearable electronics is a fast-growing field, allowing people to monitor everything from athletic performance to health. There are many aspects to monitor, and entrepreneurs are developing a wide range of new products as well as software such as apps to monitor the results.

Sensoria has created a line of garments embedded with textile sensors that are soft, durable and machine-washable. Co-founded by CEO Davide Vigano, CTO Mario Esposito and Maurizio Macagno, vice president of development, all of whom worked with Microsoft, Sensoria has made significant inroads in wearables in its four years, but it hasn’t been easy as the company needed to design not only its own textile sensors, but also the electronics, the smartphone app and equipment to manufacture the system.

The most recent addition to the Sensoria product line is the Sensoria Fitness Socks, which has earned notice as a 2015 CES Innovation Award Honoree, as well as funding from Reply. The sock connects to a Bluetooth detachable anklet, which contains an accelerometer, BT Smart communication and storage for data. These socks track steps, speed, calories and altitude gain distance, as well as track cadence, foot landing technique, GPStrack and weight distribution on the foot.

Vigano said the technology is new, but the wearable market has huge potential.

“It is a small industry but it is growing very fast,” Vigano said.

The Fitness Socks have already drawn attention from industry leaders, earning the 2015 CES award. It utilizes a conductive thread knitted into the sock; developing the textile machine was just one of the challenges Sensoria faced.

“This technology didn’t exist,” Vigano said. “We had to create our own pressure sensor for the socks, which allows us to capture foot landing data. We interviewed 70 sock knitting manufacturers and developed a few tools to make and test this device. We also created the mobile application and cloud service, and we also have 50 developers working on additional sports and fitness apps.”

The Sensoria Fitness smartphone app provides a virtual coach and combines real-time biometric data coming from the socks to provide audio cues that may help the runner avoid bad habits. The Sensoria Dashboard provides intuitive analytics and customizable graphs and share results online.

“Our device can tell if you are doing your exercise right,” Vigano said. “It can also do other tests, connecting multiple smart garments as well as an odometer feature for shoes.”

In addition to the Sensoria Fitness Socks, Sensoria also offers the Sensoria Fitness T-Shirt and Sport Bra, which have soft textile cardiac electrodes that snap to heart rate monitors. Simply add your shoes to the Shoe Closet to keep track of mileage on each pair and compare how far, how fast amd how well you run with each one.

Healthcare is another key market opportunity that Sensoria monitors. Patients can be monitored remotely, allowing data to be collected and patient safety to be watched closely. Potential areas for monitoring include peripheral neuropathy for diabetes patients, fall detection and prevention, prosthetics, diabetic foot ulcers and rehabilitation monitoring.

Sensoria products are availableon the Sensoria Fitness online store or Amazon.com. The Sports Bra/T-Shirt are shipping now; the Smart Socks/Anklet are available for online pre-orders and will be commercially shipping in the first quarter of 2015. Vigano said that more than 5,000 units have been pre-sold already.

“Our goal is to work with sports apparel and medical device companies to become the Gore-Tex of wearables,” Vigano concluded. “It is a journey, but it is encouraging.”