Conductive textile company promises ‘endless connectivity’
17/10/2018
Launched just two years ago, the company takes its name from a term used to describe when an activity is recorded or monitored by somebody taking part in that activity. This is often carried out via small wearable or portable devices, for example GoPro action cameras, frequently used to document daring or dangerous activities. It differs from the word ‘surveillance’, which refers to observation by an external entity. Both words are French in origin.
SVT chose this name as it suggests a company that makes products that are able to monitor the body’s parameters via clothes worn for everyday use. Its mission is to create a “body-borne computer that is always on, always working hassle free, which the user can fit and then forget.”
It has developed circuits that can be integrated directly into a fabric. There is also the option for them to be bonded, transferred onto a fabric in the form of flexible substrates (e.g. TPU, PU film or heat transfer inks).
At a presentation he delivered at the smart textile zone of Titas 2018, Robert Zhong, SVT’s marketing manager, expressed the belief that the company’s embedded conductive technology offers the possibility of “endless connectivity”. It refers to this technology as ‘Connect Life’.
SVT said its conductive textiles are robust, lightweight, thin, flexible, stretchable and easily customised to the needs of individual customers. They are also washable, something which SVT demonstrated at its booth in Taipei. The stand featured a fish tank which contained a functioning example of its technology, as well as a machine to simulate the spinning of a washing machine. This was designed to show that the technology would still work after washing.
Among the potential applications for this technology are in jackets for cyclists, and in footwear or sportswear products that can measure efficiency or form. There are also opportunities in health monitoring, where the conductive technology could be used to record the vital statistics of patients in hospitals or of elderly people.
SVT told sportstextiles that automotive is another sector it is exploring, with the circuits capable of being applied to leather for use in heated vehicle seats. It said this system would be much more efficient than current electrical seat heating methods, which primarily use wires and coils, and would require around 10% of the total energy to generate the same heating effect.
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