Fashion designer Ralph Lauren has developed a smart shirt, which it plans to use during the US Open.
The nylon t-shirt designed by the legendary fashion label is infused with conductive silver-coated fibres woven into the material, which can pick up details about the wearers heart rate and breathing.
Unfortunately, however, it won’t be the players who will be trying out this innovative new connected clothing. For the first outing it will be the ball boys and girls who will have their vital signs tracked in real-time.
“It’s fascinating to see this guy at the peak of his youth and his health, to watch the stress that he’s under when Roger Federer is handing him a ball,” David Lauren VP for marketing, advertising and communications told the New York Times.
“You can actually see his heart rate spike. You can see his breathing.”
While Ralph Lauren isn’t the first company to start experimenting with wearables in sport, it’s certainly the biggest name in fashion to play the field so far.
As Wareable discovered in our investigation into wearable technology in football, there are huge benefits for both sports professionals and spectators alike. However, Ralph Lauren’s focus on limiting the impact of the sensors and technology, and putting the emphasis on natural clothing certainly gets our full support.
“Everyone is exploring wearable tech watches and headbands and looking at cool sneakers,” Mr. Lauren said. “We skipped to what we thought was new, which is apparel. We live in our clothes.”
Ralph Lauren is just the latest in a line of designers getting into the wearable tech game. Check out our round-up of the best designer wearables.
Source: New York Times
How we test
James is the co-founder of Wareable, and he has been a technology journalist for 15 years.
He started his career at Future Publishing, James became the features editor of T3 Magazine and T3.com and was a regular contributor to TechRadar – before leaving Future Publishing to found Wareable in 2014.
James has been at the helm of Wareable since 2014 and has become one of the leading experts in wearable technologies globally. He has reviewed, tested, and covered pretty much every wearable on the market, and is passionate about the evolving industry, and wearables helping people achieve healthier and happier lives.