Finally I can have warm toes.
Have you heard of wearable Wednesday? If you have not yet, you’ll hear about it now. This year at IMS (on Wednesday funnily enough), we are promoting the use of wearable electronics for anything and everything from Fitbits for counting steps on the show floor to iPhone apps for ‘Sleep Cycle’ tracking and reminding us of all of the sleep we are not getting.
But let me share with you what has me excited about wearables—finally that I can have warm toes all year long! On a flight back from Texas recently, I grabbed a copy of United Hemisphere Magazine to read on the descent into LAX. One article (and its image) caught my attention…“Bluetooth is the new Black.”
This article effectively talked about the merger of New York City fashion with Silicon Valley tech and how smart fibers will be taking off in the months and years ahead. Here is a snippet of what we can expect in the near future:
“Imagine a huge laboratory for the fashion business—a place where designers and technicians scuttle around, Oompa-Loompa-like, creating animated sweatshirts and self-darning socks, where shoemakers collaborate with rocket scientists to create killer heels that aren’t hell on your feet.
Such a scenario, as it happens, is already at hand. Bob Bland, a former Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren designer, has just launched Manufacture New York, a 160,000-square-foot complex in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, which she describes as ‘Silicon Valley for fashion.’”
The article also mentioned that The Princeton Lab for Electrochemical Engineering Systems Research is working on producing “fiber batteries,” which will power our socks and shirts as required. I was thrilled to know that I’ll finally have a solution to my chronically cold feet. In fact, I even stumbled across (thanks to a friend) this kickstarter campaign for smart shoe insoles to heat your feet: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1308642275/digitsole-the-first-interactive-insole-to-heat-you
Now imagine IMS in Phoenix this May, as we walk outside and enjoy the lovely sunshine and warm weather dressed in summery styles—only to enter the convention center and its air-conditioned tundra. Smart socks sound like an understatement. I’m hoping for the smart suit that keeps me warm indoors and cool outside this year at IMS. How’s that for knowing that one of the hottest technologies under the sun this year at IMS may just be the smart tech fibers in our clothes!