The boring old t-shirt is getting less boring by the day. They can already play music, detect Wi-Fi signals and, if Google ever brings Project Jacquard off the drawing board, even be used as a touchscreen. Now, if you're the type who wants to change your shirt without actually changing your shirt, Broadcast Wearables might have something for your wardrobe: a digital t-shirt that lets you write or draw your own designs.
The Broadcast shirts feature an embedded LED display on the front, and using an app that you pair with the shirt, the wearer can swap out the design at will. It looks like the app gives you a grid to draw on, which lights up the corresponding LEDs on the shirt. And you can type text into a box and the letters will appear on the grid, although we're not sure how this works when you throw drawings and text together.
The app lets you browse other people's designs and share your own, building a library that you can swap through on the shirt itself by swiping on a touch pad hidden in the breast. Although we all know what everybody ends up drawing when you give people the freedom, and you probably don't want that on a t-shirt.
Still, you could have some fun with it. Spruik your Twitter handle. Flash a winky face at the girl at the bar. Walk out of a movie with spoilers on your chest.
The LEDs are apparently foldable, spill-proof and washable, although the site warns not to throw it in the washing machine.
Broadcast Wearables is currently running an Indiegogo campaign for what it calls the "world's first touch-enabled t-shirt" (though if you've been rocking out with a guitar and drum-kit t-shirt since 2010 you may disagree with that description). Pledges start at US$49 (RRP $99) and the first units to be shipped out in November if all goes to plan.
Check out the delightfully awkward video below to see how it works.
Source: Broadcast Wearables