When thinking of wearable technology, it’s probably more along the lines of a wristband (e.g. Apple Watch) or accessory. Now, Google pants would like to rear itself into the wearable technology scene. Is the wearable technology scene wearing itself out with Google pants? When we say wearable, do we really want our articles of clothing to also be high-tech?
Google Pants by Project Jacquard
Google pants have the leg up on wearable technology that happens to actually be articles of clothing. Google pants feature an invisible, high-tech design in that it will be sewed into the fabric, rendering the product pretty much undetectable. If the conductive cloth is as Google says, the same as normal fabric, then why don’t we take this step in wearable tech? The chip that controls Google Pants is button-sized, too. The conductive metal threads will be able to turn your pants into a touchpad. The same technology can lie within the threading of your shirt. The possibilities don’t even end there.
Project Jacquard is the Future of Fabric
Google’s developers call this smart, new conductive fabric Project Jacquard. It is set by the new touchpad and will run on Wi-Fi to interact with your devices. Jacquard will be able to sense variations of finger use as well as finger pressure. Your finger’s motions across the fabric would be able to change features on your smart devices such as brightness and color, as well as pausing, playing, rewinding, etc. on a media player. Gestures will also be both customizable to your comfort, and the smart technology could learn patterns of usage by gathering data from your most commonly used gestures.
Pros and Cons of Touchscreen Google Pants
A perk of these Google pants as the newest in wearable technology is the low costs of it. Textile can be produced quite cheaply on standard machines. There’s nowhere to go but more and more connected, it seems. It’s not enough to already have a smartphone or to already able to talk to it to control it or even to just have wearable tech accessories that control your smart devices. Connected clothing clearly has its eyebrow-raising features, but a large pro will be its ability to translate its smart usefulness to other industries such as science and medicine. This fabric can add efficiency and speed to endeavors and research in science, medicine, and technology.
A possible issue could be making sure accidental touches and gestures aren’t too big a nuisance. Ideally, there would be a solution that prevents random touches from happening – much like pocket dialing or butt dialing. With Google pants and Project Jacquard, butt dialing might no longer be an accident.
