The fitness industry has gone from strength to strength in recent decades, thanks to sustained and widespread public interest in staying in shape. We’ve been doing a lot more recreational jumping, lifting, running, and stretching – and the world of fashion has provided us with clothing that supports these activities.
The development of new, durable and stretchable synthetic textiles has been helpful. But new developments and innovations might open up new and exciting possibilities in the worlds of fitness and fashion. Let’s consider what those developments might look like.
Smart Textiles and Embedded Electronics
Microchips are getting smaller every year. And, in many cases, we’re reaching a stage where they can be embedded directly into the clothes we wear. The most obvious example of wearable tech is the wrist-mounted heart-rate monitor, which has been made ubiquitous by brands like Fitbit and Apple. But smart fabrics are about to push the envelope even further.
What could this mean? Well, we might soon see woven displays, which display information about your health directly on your clothing. Conductive fibres that can enclose an entire working computer, and pass unharmed through a spin cycle, might open up even more possibilities.
Flexible and Ultra-Thin Circuitry in Activewear
Of course, for electronic components and circuit boards to be embedded into stretchable clothing, those components will need to be flexible. Fortunately, there’s a new type of PCB that offers exactly this property, with all of the convenience that comes from digital design in the world of the more rigid kind of PCB. The right PCB design software might be just as important to developing the garments of the future as the loom once was to developing those of the past.
AI and Ambient Computing in Fitness Wearables
So-called ‘ambient computing’ involves a kind of computing that’s integrated seamlessly into our environment, such that we don’t even have to consciously interact with it. The idea is that we feed in masses of data about our environment, via systems that work constantly and automatically. That data can then be analysed through AI, and used to derive new insights about our health.
In the world of wearables, this might mean ensuring that ECG, blood-based metrics, and performance data, rather than being processed locally, are fed into a larger cloud ecosystem, where they can be used to provide continuous guidance and optimised coaching strategies.
Ultra-Personalised, Self-Powered Wellness Wearables
The more tailored a given wearable item is to the specific needs of the person wearing it, the more effective it’s likely to be. This is especially the case when it comes to fitness-oriented wearables. After all, a coaching program that’s bespoke to a given individual is likely to be much more effective than one that tries to fit every case.
Of course, presenting the user with personalised, relevant insights means collecting the right data – ideally, through integrated, self-powered devices. Clothing, patches and even implants might be used to glean vital data, and they might be powered solely through things like body heat and movement – and by ever more efficient kinds of battery technology.