Guide for smart practices

1)      What kind of company are you?

We are a non-profit developing among others prototypes and STEM educational materials for courses and workshops. We work with 4 people, of which 3 have a product design background. Smart textiles is a special interest of us, as we believe much more is possible already today with smart textiles.

Example products: In bed detector

2)      Please provide the most interesting example of technical / smart textiles that you have.

We work starting from a problem statement. Smart textiles only comes up if it is the natural solution to a problem we want to tackle. For example, for patients that cannot easily wake up, we made an intelligent bed system, intel.letto, which generates stimuli to wake up the patient.  One of the parts is the system to switch off the alarm, of which we had the requirement that the person had to be out of the bed to switch it off. Smart textiles is a natural solution for this, as the in bed detection system can be developed in such a way that you do not see or feel it. It is completely integrated in the bed sheets, and, taking the necessary precautions, can even be washed.

3)      How did you promote or put your product on the market?

We are well known within the maker community in Belgium as we participate in maker faires, STEM events and special expositions and trainings for teachers and educators. We are also connected to the university in Ghent, the University College Kortrijk and Flanders Make, which provides extra exposure.

The important part is to come out of the lab with your products and show-case them. Then from time to time media will pick it up. Like this we now participate also in a tv-program about prototyping solutions for people with special needs.

4)      What requirements do your customers most request? (EC Certifications, washing etc.)

Our main focus is education. Our clients come to us for high quality and ad hoc, customized solutions suitable for use with young children (aged between 5 and 12) and preferably very low cost. As we do not do production of large batches, certification is not an issue. Washing is mostly not requested, but if it is, we adapt the product and take into account the material technical sheets.

In light of this, we can say that the main requirement is very good high quality documentation for the DIY kits we deliver, so that non-experts can work with our products. 

5)      What is the competition in your market for smart textiles?

For finished smart textile products there is very little competition at the moment. For the use of smart textiles in STEM projects for children there are almost no companies that provide support. Being it in sharing knowledge or lists of suitable materials.

6)      What is your advice to new smart textile companies?

Dare to take the leap, and think in possibilities. Ease of use and washability are the main concerns, and require careful prototyping and iterations. Test, test, test, and combine the old hand crafts with the high end production capabilities due to robotization. Finally, surround yourself with a motivated team with different expertise.

7)      Do you agree in sharing some of these experiences for educational purposes?

Most of our prototypes are not available as they are given to the clients. But we gladly share knowledge and expertise. Almost all of our documentation is available under Creative Commons Licence, so it can be freely used.