Wearables, to be true to their name, should ideally be devices that are comfortable and easy to wear, like a snug scarf or a soft pair of socks. But many devices laying claim to the wearable tag don't quite meet this brief. The Wove Band could be an exception.
Some progress has been made of late for fabric-weavable electronic display elements, though these have yet to progress far beyond the laboratory. Billed as the "world's first flexible touch display," the Wove Band will combine a proprietary digital fabric developed by Chicago-based Polyera over a ten year period with a flexible electronic ink (E Ink) film display, which can be used either flat on a surface or wrapped around a wrist.
E Ink film technology has already been used in millions of displays worldwide and is well-proven in production reliability, and the properties of electronic inkmean that the display uses no energy while showing a static image.
Polyera is planning to have prototype units in the hands of developers by the end of the year, with a market launch of the technology slated for somewhere around the middle of 2016.
Details on how to enter a submission will be available at the Wove Band website in coming weeks. Plans are also afoot for a variety of flexible electronic components, including flexible OLED displays, malleable sensors, and soft logic circuits.