Wearable Tech: Ideas-LEDs and light

I did a little research looking around the net on possible ideas that I could do for my wearable device. I had a feeling that I'd want to use light, probably LEDs so I found examples of using those.

The one above was one of my favourites. Clothing with EL (electroluminescent) wires sewn on which lights up the clothing. I think it emphasises the lines and shape of the garment too which is a nice touch. I could probably use it as a system of wires for my switches as well, which would be a lot easier if I can figure out how to do it, because I wouldn't need to worry about hiding the wires on the inside of the garment so much since it conducts electricity. If I use it as the system of switches, the EL wires can blink on and off as switches are activated, so you get a different pattern with every switch you press.

Some restrictions of EL wire is that if you put them in areas that move around a lot or sew it on fabric that's not stable enough, the place where you bend the wire (e.g. joints) will eventually wear down over time and break. It can make the garment rigid and uncomfortable to wear if you have a complex pattern/design, because these wires are quite stiff.



Since EL wire can be expensive to buy, I found an alternative that imitates EL wire. This one is probably a lot cheaper. It's a hollow plastic tube of water with an LED on either end to light it up. This one would have no way of becoming wiring to connect the switches though. It's also not as flexible as EL wire is so it would be harder to shape it into a particular design.




This one is an LED display that pulsates to the beat of music. This would be great to add to the device to make a connection to what it does with the audio of the movie if that's going to be what I'm doing.

It's made in the form of a lamp in the example, but maybe there's a way I can modify it to suit my needs in this project.


Another good idea for LED display is persistence of vision. This is a little trick on the eyes where your eyes retain an afterimage when the LED display is waved around giving the optical illusion of patterns and messages as the device senses the speed at which it is moving and outputs light accordingly to give the desired pattern/message. This is cool, and it'd be amazing to put it into the design, but I'm not sure if there's really a use for it. Won't rule it out yet, but if I'm going to do persistence of vision I'll have to find a suitable patch for it.



When trying to come up with an idea lose your logic and follow your instincts. Find some inspiration according to your gut feeling, then find a way to make it work with your logic later. Don't place restrictions before the beginnings of an idea are even born.