Textlie Reflexes – Posture Coach

Textile Reflexes is a collaboration between Hellen van Rees, Angelika Mader & Geke Ludden of the University of Twente, and Valérie Lamontagne. The project was funded by EU Horizon 2020 project Wearsustain.

We see a growing demand in the healthcare sector for more coaching products, products that can be applied in a home-environment and that have a more suitable design for that environment. Textile Reflexes is a project where shape changing sustainable textiles are developed to give feedback to users and applied in coaching situations. By taking textiles as the basis in our prototypes and adding the technology in a subtle way we aim to create a familiarity to the user. It feels comfortable, like a garment instead of a machine.

We made a shape changing textile that can be applied in wearables. If the shape changing textile is connected to the internet, we get to robotic textiles as a part of the internet of things.

The first working prototype of this project is a posture correction coach. The vest can be worn over regular garments and it measures when the user has an incorrect posture. The flexible panel of squares at the back is then pulled together to subtly remind the user to sit back upright.  This feedback is intuitively interpreted, and causes little distraction. This way the user is stimulated to correct his or her posture herself.

The process behind this project and the resultion prototype has been part of several exhibitions and publications such as:

  • Design Research Society conference (Ireland)
  • Ars Elektronika (Austria)
  • Dutch Design Week (The Netherlands)
  • STRAND (Serbia)