FITNESS / WEARABLE SPECIAL..................... When a T-Shirt tells you to take a chill pill

When a T-Shirt tells you to take a chill pill



My T-shirt tells me things.
My heart rate, for instance: 62 beats a minute. And my breathing: 17 breaths a minute. Unless I drink too many cappuccinos or a deadline looms.
Then my T-shirt tells me my that heart rate has jumped to the high 80s, my breathing to 22. My T-shirt is connected to me and also to the Internet. So along with an iPhone app, it can remind me to take a breath, relax, chill.

Seriously. The OMsignal Tshirt has sensors that are supposed to pick up all sorts of data about me -the aforementioned vital signs, plus how many calories I burn and even how stressed I am. OMsignal is a part of a new breed of young companies focus ing on wearable technology .

Lots of people wear fitness bands that monitor their health.
Whether those products deliver all they promise is questionable. But why wear a wristband when you're already wearing clothes?
Weave some sensors into the fabric, and you have one accessory fewer to worry about.

“Smart clothing is easy because it's the only wearable medium you've already been wearing your whole life,“ said Stéphane Marceau, co-founder of OMsignal.
“In a decade, every piece of apparel you buy will have some sort of biofeedback sensors built in it.“

Many challenges must be overcome first, not the least of which is price. OMsignal shirts start at $80, but they also need a module, which powers the shirt and talks to its sensors, that costs $120. But the shirt is machine washable.
“The leap that you have to make from a prototype or small-lot sizes of these wearables to an affordable mass-market product is pretty significant,“ said Jonathan Gaw, research manager for IDC Research.
“The price is going to have to come way down.“

Gaw said that wearable apparel would be used first for fitness, wellness and medical applications by se lect consumers. He warned that it could be slow going.

“In terms of these being mainstream, and something that people will use on a daily basis, you're getting into Buck Rogers territory there,“ he said.

But Marceau said consumers were getting to a point where they want more information about themselves. “The first cars were completely blind. Then you had a gas gauge. Then a speedometer. Now you can't imagine a car without these things,“ he said. “Smart clothing is starting to do the same thing for the human body .“ NYT NEWS SERVICE

Nick Bilton