How and Why Standardization Will Benefit the E-Textile Industry

摘要

Etextile is a booming market in the electronics sector—and in the textile sector. Being at the crossroads of two industries has problems of its own. Christian Dalsgaard, founder and former CTO of Ohmatex in Denmark, learned that the hard way while developing state-of-the-art wearables for the European Space Agency, among others. He argues for standards in e-textile. Senior Technology Editor Bill Wong chats with Christian about this growing need. WHICH PROBLEMS ARE SHAPING E-TEXTILE NOWADAYS? There are two clusters of problems— the first cluster has to do with the central challenges of e-textile. The most important one is unifying something hard with something soft, something rigid with something flexible. Also, you need to make a device as small as possible, while maintaining its performance. And then there's the challenge to make cabling, connectors and electronics sealing that will survive hostile environments— sweat, washing machines, tumble dryers, to name the most obvious.