Designing use-cases for a new smart textile technology

What if the fabric surfaces around you were connected, and touching them could trigger interactions with your devices? LeeLuu Labs, the startup I co-founded, created it’s own patent pending technology to enable this.

Client: LeeLuu Labs, Role: Industrial Designer, Team size: 4, 2014-2016.

 Weaving electronics in to fabric, creating a textile “touch-pad“

The patent-pending technology is a technique for weaving touch and pressure-sensitivity into fabric. The result is a kind of textile “touchpad“ that can be woven into any kind of fabric, in any size. While similar technologies exist, leeluu’s solution enables a more detailed reading of touch and pressure, without complicating the weaving process.

As design strategist, I lead the team’s work of exploring different applications for the technology. This included ideation workshops, concept development, business cases and product roadmaps,

Our first product based on the technology was the LeeLuu Nightlight. Below are a few of the other concepts we created.

Concept: touch-pad patch
The concept is a touch-pad patch of fabric that can be attached to any other fabric surface, like a piece of clothing. The patch can then be used to for example control your music while running, answer calls, send messages etc.

Concept: connected pillow

In this concept an entire pillow-case is made interactive. Since it has a larger surface, it can sense larger gestures. For example, stroking downwards could lower the lighting in the room. Hugging the pillow could send a message to a loved one.