Wearable tech is a step nearer

News this week of a space age fabric that conducts and stores electricity.

University of Wollongong scientist and inventor, Gordon Wallace, with the space age fabric

By combining strands of carbon nanotubes with strands of plastic polymer, Australian scientists have created a yarn that is both incredibly stronger and conducts electricity.

Imagine sportwear made of this stuff that actively monitors all of your vital functions.  What about sewing in any amount of wearable technology - a music player, a GPS, a phone, whatever you need to be connected.

I think somebody is going to get very rich on the back of this one.

A convenient foil

Zinc based foil batteries are light, very thin and safer than lithium

Foil battery is ultra-thin and flexible

Imprint Energy has an ambitious mission - to reshape the battery landscape.  As their website proclaims they are "rethinking the battery".

Most of the batteries that power our high consumption smartphones, laptops and tablets are lithium-ion, treasured for it's capacity and rechargeability.  Unfortunately Li-ion needs a lot of packaging around it to keep the highly volatile lithium electrolyte from getting out of control - it explodes in air and water.  Regardless of how thin and light we can make our devices, the lithium batteries add significant weight and bulk to the package.

Recognising that lithium is not going to cut it in the light and portable stakes, Californian start-up Imprint Energy is working with using zinc rather than lithium in their ultra-thin flexible batteries.  Zinc has previously been rejected as a rechargeable battery component because when it is combined with a traditional liquid electrolyte there is a tendency for undesirable crystals of dendrite to form but Imprint has overcome this issue  by using a solid polymer in place of the liquid.

With zinc being much more stable in normal environmental conditions the bulky packaging required with Li-ion can be abandoned, meaning the batteries using this technology can be very, very thin - just the thickness of a couple of human hairs.  They have high hopes that wearable tech and digital smart labels on packaging will be able to make good use of this technology.

Imprint Energy is certainly making people sit up and take notice. They are already churning out small volumes of batteries via a revolutionary printing technique.  The batteries are printed in much the same way as traditional screen printing so the design and shape can be customised to suit virtually whatever the customer wants.  The current production capability is tiny but this could be scaled up massively simply by partnering with a large battery producer.

Let's hope that they can quickly turn this exciting technology into a lucrative commercial reality.

Imprint Energy batteries bring hope for wearable tech (GigaOm)

Imprint Energy home

Pebble dash

007 Casino Royale

Smart watches.  They've been around for as long as I can remember.  007 has had all manner of smart watches for the last 50 years.  Some of them contained wire to saw through metal bars or for abseiling out of a tight situation. Others could print out a ticker tape a message from M or Q.  These were simply fun props for movie excitement but the modern smart watch really works.

For me, the first truly useful smart watches were the radio controlled ones that synchronised to the atomic clock using a signal beamed out from London, Frankfurt or a host of other world locations.

Atomic clock synchronised watch

Unfortunately, my adopted country hasn't harnessed the benefits of precision timing for the masses so we can't use this functionality here but radio-controlled watches and clocks have been a big hit with consumers lucky enough to be in range of the signal.  They're not even considered that special anymore.  Every home weather centre or Oregon Scientific alarm clock can also use this technology, if the signal is there.

Pulsar calculator watch

In the 1980s calculator watches were a geeky fad for the blink of an eye but they didn't really catch on.  For me they fell into the same category of unnecessary purchases as the Sinclair C5 did.  They make the user a source of ridicule and, be honest, who wants to look stupid?

Enter a new breed of smart watch for today.  From what I can glean about the Pebble, the watch itself doesn't actually need a whole heap of technology.  It seems to be primarily a satellite display and alarm function for the tethered smartphone in your pocket.  Rather than constantly playing with your phone or carrying it in your hand while exercising the watch can provide you with a scrolling feed from your email, Twitter feed or news ticker.  If the user wants to, he or she can be always connected without being overtly focused on that pesky smartphone.  High technology that tries to be discreet rather than in your face.  Not everyone wants to be seen with their head in their phone so this device may well appeal to those who have not totally sacrificed  social skills to technology.

The Pebble watch

Pebble inventors faced a common issue for start-ups - no funding, so they followed a modern trend and crowdfunded  their capital through Kickstarter.  Clearly there's some faith in the Pebble watch concept because they quickly gained offers of far more money than they actually needed to get going.

The technology that makes the Pebble possible is also something of an Achilles heel.  Any transmitting device faces a raft of compliance demands particularly around aircraft of medical equipment.  Add to this the dangerous distraction this could be for drivers and Pebble have some real safety challenges.

Pebble has some serious competition from other start-ups and some big players too so it a bit early to know where this will lead.

I'm not part of their target demographic as I don't want to be 'on' to this degree.  The watch is also much too big for my wrist but it does have more style that one might expect.

The i'M watch

Finally one spin-off from this interest in wrist tech.  People may once again start to wear wristwatches, a fashion that's been in steady decline since we discovered the mobile phone.

11 high tech watches you can buy

Tech watch reviews

Smart watches (Stuff article)