Industry Insights
Smart and interactive textiles are superior cloth products integrated with electronic machinery such as sensors for a variety of applications such as heat management, health monitoring, communication response and actuation. Maximum users of interactive and smart textiles include military, transportation, and consumer applications such asfitness, medical and sports. Smart textiles are materials which consists the capability to act in response to natural stimuli from mechanical, thermal, magnetic, electrical sources. Hence they presume an extra purpose above the straight use of textile. Integration of electronic technology, attached with diminishing production expenses of electronic components and fabrics has supported in the improvement of these resources. The smart textile market has seen significant development in the past few years that has changed the market from inactive to dynamic smart textiles. Initially, textiles were skilled but restricted to sense environmental stimuli, at the same time as dynamic textiles expanded to elements such as control unit, actuators and sensors. The Clothing Area Network project is expected for improving the technology to permit the shifting and power between intelligent modules, wireless and wired data. Active smart textiles consist of heat storage, shape memory, water-resistant.
Smart textiles market growth is due to the launching of textile fibers and conductive materials which makes easy integration with electronics. In addition, the improvement in wireless technology has helped in communication among devices such as mobile phones and computers. Improved better power supply was the main restraint for smart textiles market companies, as conservative batteries are very heavy to place. This obstacle is being resolved with the use of flexible cloth and design of less weight. Regular textile production techniques need to be taken under consideration in order to make usage of the objective garment.
Application Insights
Main fields of application for the smart textiles market consists of entertainment, fashion, fitness, sports, transportation, protection, architecture, and military. Protection and military have highly contributed in terms of revenue over the past few years. There is a requirement for instantaneous information technology in extreme environmental conditions and critical situations. Major parameters to be considered in the improvement of smart textiles for firefighting consists accurate temperature measurement in clothing, gloves, easy laundering, as well as comfort. In the entertainment and fashion domain, light emitting textiles is anticipated to be a factor driving the industry due to the integration of light emitting diodes. In addition, there is assured rising on electronic gadgets such as phones, digital cameras, laptops that consists power supply, microprocessor and data transmission. With advancement in technology, addition of these components in textile is anticipated to drive the market. The beginning of wearable gadgets offers the constant watch on physiological signals, that has main importance in the medical sector. By permitting the monitoring of patients, this textile also helps out to overcome the weakness of rare clinic visits. The requirement to improve athletic performance is driving important development and research actions in the textile industry.
Regional Insights
North America is anticipated to be the major regional smart textile market in the upcoming period of time. Development in applications area is the major driving factor expected for market development in the U.S. Moreover, low cost textile and fabric production in Asia Pacific has resulted in compact manufacturing in Western Europe. Investments for various interactive and smart textile research projects have been witnessed in Europe. Cheap manufacturing cost in China and India has given push in Asia Pacific region for smart textiles market.
Competitive Insights
The worldwide smart textiles market can be segmented into existence of a maximum number of stakeholders. Market consists of electronics companies, electronics equipment manufacturers, textile companies, research institutes, system integrators. Major players such as Adidas and Nike offer superior clothing. Maximum of the smart textile customer goods have been launched in the top-end performance textile market, so that improvement costs can be enhanced by high prices. Some other players into this market are, Fibretronic, Textronics, Peratech Ltd, Philips.
