Your heart on your sleeve: Advances in textile-based electronics are weaving computers right into the clothes we wear

Abstract

Wearable health care is part of the more general category of wearable computers or wearable electronics. Wearable electronics and wearable computers appeared in the mid-1990s, when the computer was regarded as the ultimate equipment for information processing and before laptop computers, tablet computers, and smartphones. At that time, people tried to find what kind of portable form factors would be good for the computer as an information device for daily living. Wearable computers refers to miniature electronic devices that are worn under, with, or on top of clothing [1]. With the help of humancomputer interaction (HCI) technology, which previously made use of the ?windows? concept, as Web browsers do, by means of a graphic user interface (GUI), wearable electronics have tried to use other modalities for HCI beyond the display and keyboard. In many respects, the current smartphone has already achieved the computing power the early wearable computers aimed at. But in addition to the smartphone?s strong computing power, more human body?compatible, wearable IO devices and sensors are necessary so that users can experience the full benefits of mobile computing, which the smartphone and tablet PC have begun to open up. In many applications, the user?s skin, hands, voice, eyes, and arms, as well as the user?s motion or attention, are actively exploited in appropriate engagement with the physical environment. Of course, this area shares many basic technologies with the mobile computing, ambient intelligence, and ubiquitous-computing research communities, including those that handle power management and heat dissipation, software architectures, and wireless and personal-area networks. © 2009-2012 IEEE.