Wires and bulky devices that don’t stretch and move with the body when playing sports are things of the past. DuPont Advanced Materials (DuPont) is launching its newest DuPont Intexar smart clothing technology, a new generation of stretchable electronic inks and films for smart clothing.
The new development was revealed last week during the Outdoor Retailer trade show in Salt Lake City, Utah after five years of studies and experimentation.
Thanks to Intexar, ordinary fabrics can be transformed into active, connected, intelligent garments that provide critical biometric data including heart rate, breathing rate, form awareness and muscle tension.
The newly achieved technology offers superior stretch and comfort and is easily integrated into garments to make smart clothing. “Every athlete–from professional to everyday–can benefit from smart clothing to help boost their performance; but it has to look good and feel good,” said Michael Burrows, global business manager, DuPont Advanced Materials.
“Intexar is a game-changing technology and will truly move the needle in making smart garments as comfortable as regular fitness clothing,” he added.
Available as a suite of premium and high-performing stretchable electronic inks and flexible substrates, Intexar is seamlessly embedded directly onto fabric using standard apparel manufacturing processes to create thin, form-fitting circuits. Garments powered by Intexar can endure over 100 washes, and continue to perform through repeated stretching and demanding performance.
DuPont is featuring two smart clothing garment brands powered by Intexar technology. One is Body Plus and it displays a smart fitness shirt commercially available in China. This garment embeds DuPont Intexar to enable real-time monitoring and data collection, such as, for instance, heart rate, breathing and muscles movements.
A second one is OMsignal and it displays two products: a high-end fitness sports bra and a comfortable, attractive lifestyle bra, both boasting advanced sensory technologies capturing real time ECG, respiration and physical activity. "We’re using Intexar prints for our ECG sensors. Intexar technology is enabling multiple applications well beyond athletic apparel and is helping us to make smart clothing mainstream,” said Frederic Chanay, CEO and co-founder of OMsignal.
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