The latest offering from the world of body electronics is an intelligent shirt that can sense the wearer’s vital signs such as body temperature, heart rate and respiration. The Smartshirt from Sensatex, a developer of integrated smart textile systems, is a cotton shirt that lives up to its name. Made of fully-washable fabric that has a patented nanotechnology-based conductive fibre seamlessly integrated within, the t-shirt is designed to digitize the wearer information and then transmit it via a wireless connection to a remote back-end system for real-time monitoring. Another advantage of the wireless connectivity is that it eliminates the need for a trained technician to be present to perform the data transfer or retrieval.

The technology used to develop the Smartshirt was first commissioned by the U.S Department of Defense, DARPA, presumably because of the huge investments involved, and took 5 years to see the light of day.

The applications of this invention are innumerable and some of them include remote monitoring of patients with chronic illnesses and elderly patients, training support for athletes, monitoring of individuals who work with hazardous materials, and tracking of professional truck drivers’ vital signs to alert them of fatigue. The price tag on the t-shirt is not available as yet and the actual deployment will begin later this year. The company is looking for beta testers – contact them and you could be one of the lucky ones to get a feel of the Smartshirt for yourself.