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The New Wearable? Clothing with GPS, Wi-Fi Woven In

December 2, 2014  - By
BB.Suit 2.0

BB.Suit 2.0 Photo: ByBorre

Dutch textile company ByBorre and its founder, fashion designer Borre Akkersdijk, have created the BB.suit — a wearable Wi-Fi hotspot with GPS, a music library, and an air purifier.

Version 1.0 of the suit, which has electrical threads woven into the fabric, was showcased at the SXSW music and film tradeshow in March, where a model’s location was shown on Google Maps, allowing anyone to locate the suit using its GPS data, and then upload songs to a 22Tracks platform.

Version 2.0 introduces an additional tech — an air purification system. Demonstrated at Beijing Design Week in September, the garment purifies the polluted air surrounding the wearer. According to Dezeen, designers Akkersdijk and Eva de Laat collaborated with Martijn ten Bhomer from the Eindhoven University of Technology, Daan Spangenberg Graphics, and StudioFriso to create the one-piece suit, which looks like an adult onesie.

“The BB.Suit started because everyone was talking about wearable technology, the bracelets, the glasses,” Akkersdijk told Dezeen. “We thought about how we could really integrate the electrical threads and sensors and not just stick them on.”

The electrical yarns are woven into the body and legs of the outfit, while the long sleeves and a hood are made from standard textiles. The air-quality sensor at chest level is connected to a hidden platform chip that tracks and transmits data counting the particles of carbon monoxide, methane and dust around the body. The chip is wired to a battery and a cold plasma node on the back of the suit.

You won’t be able to outfit yourself with the garment yet, as it was created as a step towards a connected wearable platform rather than a product to be marketed.

GPS World’s December cover story, “The Fashion Demands of Always-On,” discusses the chip architecture requirements of wearables. Read it here.

byborre-03 Photo: ByBorre

Photo: ByBorre

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