A shirt that can track a person’s heart rate, a shoe that can measure gait – the integration of electronic components with textiles to form e-textiles has been a significant research interest for several years. The promise of seamlessly incorporating electronics into our daily lives through e-textiles has also drawn much industry interest, including historic efforts from major players such as Adidas and Nike, together with millions of dollars in funding for startups in the space.

IDTechEx has recently released “E-Textiles and Smart Clothing Markets 2023-2033: Technologies, Players, and Applications,” a market research report exploring the technologies and markets of the e-textiles industry.

Of the various applications of e-textiles, biometric monitoring has received particular interest. Relevant products include smart shirts for detecting warning signs of cardiovascular disease, EMG-integrated trousers for athlete coaching, and smart insoles to identify warning signs of foot ulcers, among many others.

While early interest in such products revolved around the sport and fitness market, efforts and funding have since shifted towards healthcare and medical applications. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has only highlighted the importance of remote monitoring systems, and e-textiles may potentially see greater penetration into this growing market. The IDTechEx report surveys more than 40 companies looking to develop biometric monitoring devices through e-textiles to provide detailed insights into the status of this emerging application.

Not all e-textiles remain at such an early stage. For example, heated clothing has a mature value chain with established manufacturing practices and products being sold worldwide under hundreds of different brands. Such products have been commercially available for many years now, with electric blankets and heated motorcycle jackets both being established product lines – as an example, some companies have been offering heated blankets for upwards of 40-50 years.

Yet even such mature options are still seeing innovation – conductive ink printing manufacturing methods are being explored for textile heaters and may offer a way for scalable manufacturing of lighter, more comfortable textile heaters. In addition, textile heaters may be integrated with car seats and potentially offer reduced energy usage – allowing for an increased range of electric vehicles.

The scope of e-textiles is vast, spanning multiple product types; from clothing to bed linen and industrial fabrics, new products appear throughout various verticals as this technology area is increasingly explored.