Apple Joins The Smart-Fabrics Race With Newly Filed Patent

Image Courtesy of Apple

This has become a big week for Apple's engineering teams working on future products using smart fabrics.

On Tuesday Apple was granted a major patent for smart fabrics that could be used in smart clothing and products like a new Apple TV remote.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 37 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today.

Smart Fabrics are coming to market in a meaningful way within the next five years and have the power to blow away IDC's five year wearables market forecast that plays it too safe.

There's definitely a race between technology companies occurring behind the scenes to bring smart fabrics to market and expand the "wearables" sector which remains stuck on watches and fitness bands, according to IDC's latest wearables report.

Of particular significance is a single invention relating to future smart fabrics used in smart clothing and more importantly used with devices like an Apple TV remote or MacBook. In fact, much of the patent covers a smart TV remote with built-in wireless circuitry.   

Apple's newly granted patent covers their invention relating to fabric-based items and more particularly to fabric-based items such as electronic devices covered with fabric surfaces.

 According to Apple the fabric may include conductive strands that form touch sensor circuitry.

The fabric may include portions that are patterned differently and that have different properties. For example, the fabric may include areas that transmit more light than other areas or are more opaque than other areas or may include areas that are smoother than other areas or are coarser than other areas.

 Button labels and other features may be formed by weaving or otherwise intertwining strands of material in the fabric with desired patterns, by processing fabric through application of heat and using other processing techniques, and by applying ink or other materials.

 Areas of the fabric such as areas with enhanced light transmission, button labels, distinct textures, or other attributes may overlap input circuitry such as button switches, touch sensor circuits, force sensors, proximity sensors, and other sensing circuitry.  

Of course Apple never restricts a patent to a single application. Apple makes it clear that smart fabrics could be integrated into future devices such as a MacBook (laptop), an iPad (tablet), Apple Watch (wrist watch), headphones, in a vehicle, airplane, chair, sofa and clothing or other wearable item (e.g., a hat, belt, wrist band, headband, sock, glove, shirt, pants, etc.).

 What makes this a serious fabrics invention is that one of the designers listed on the patent is Daniel Podhajny who came to Apple via Nike's Knit Exploration Innovator team where he worked on Nike's Flyknit technology.

 To date Patently Apple has recorded 13 smart fabric patents from Apple including today's new entry.

 Samsung filed for a smart fabric's patent recently covering a "Method of Changing Design of Smart Garment."

 A Future smartphone will be able to communicate with a smart jersey and allow the garment to change design with a simple tap on a new design using a smartphone app. It's a pretty interesting concept.