Clothing that cares

Imagine wearing a smart T-shirt or a suit that can notify you of your day's schedule, or store music for you, or monitor your heart and respiratory functions wirelessly.

While it sounds futuristic, Australian scientists are already stepping out in smart fashion today.

Researchers from the University of South Australia have been using garment-integrated electronic technology to develop smart garments that, when placed on electronic hangers, enable data to be transferred in a heartbeat to a computer in the wardrobe.

The garments are currently embedded with tiny electronics that can monitor your heart or respiratory function wirelessly, but could easily be adapted for other uses including the self diagnosis of faulty monitoring equipment; scheduling cleaning and dry-cleaning; a fashion butler to help people accessorise, colour match and select appropriate clothing for special occasions; and for preloading news, music and daily schedules.

You simply throw the clothes in the wash when they are dirty and hang them up when they need to recharge.

"The wardrobe has a touch screen on the outside and conductive metal bands spanning the hanging rail inside, with wires connecting it to a computer in the base of the wardrobe," said Professor Bruce Thomas, director of UniSA's Wearable Computer Laboratory.

"When we place electronic hangers, each with their own ID and metal connection, on the rail, it detects the hangers and smart garments incorporating the conductive material and integrated electronics.

"Through this connection, the computer identifies, for example, that hanger 123 has coat 45 on it, which has stored heart monitoring data that needs to be downloaded and the hanger recharged."

There's no need to worry about your heart skipping a beat when cleaning your smart shirt, either.

"For continuous monitoring, you can take off one garment and put on another smart garment so, instead of having just one heart monitor, you can have a wardrobe of them," said Thomas.

Professor Thomas points out that his researchers were not the first to think of this technology, but "we're the first worldwide to develop smart garment management technology that works".

Smart garments in the future may be used for a range of other monitoring services such as at home outpatient care and for people with dementia, enabling them to have a full life for as long as possible with a minimum level of intervention. What's more, they can be monitored without having to learn to use a new device.

"The garments enable us to monitor people's vital statistics and activity levels "” when they get up, walk around, make breakfast and dinner, or sleep "” but more importantly, we can determine if they are missing meals, fall over or stop moving," said Thomas.

"The technology can distinguish between normal and abnormal events and alert family or emergency services or, for people who live in retirement villages, alert local medical staff."