This may be the worst, least informative technology website I've ever seen – and that is a high (low?) bar. It fails the "what is it?" test with spectacular aplomb. And never have I learned less from a "learn more" page. “Music should keep you moving, not make you look at your phone.” Um, yeah, ok, thanks for that helpful information.
Agreed. I did find this on one of the pages however:
"Tiny electronics contained in the flexible snap tag connect the Jacquard Threads in the jacket’s cuff to your mobile device. The snap tag lets you know about incoming information, like a phone call, by giving you light and haptic feedback. Inspired by a strap that you would see on a cuff, it looks and feels like it’s a part of the jacket. The tag also houses the battery which can last up to 2 weeks between USB charges."
In collaboration with Google Inc., Levi's® has reimagined their iconic Trucker Jacket to create an interactive, connected garment that allows wearers to access a variety of mobile services tailored to the needs of an urban commuter. Control music, get your next direction, and screen your calls & texts by swiping or tapping the jacket sleeve. Touch and gesture data is wirelessly transmitted to mobile phones or other devices through the Jacquard snap tag.
It’s a jean jacket with a touch sensitive left sleeve cuff that talks to your phone via a tiny BTLE dongle that snaps onto the jacket. Requires Android 6.0.1 and a supported phone.
Couldn't agree more. It took me multiple clicks before arriving at a video that was too long, had no words (except the phone responses), and was mostly made up of fancy fast video cuts. I had to watch the whole thing before I understood how the jacket could interface with the phone. There's was no information about how the jacket or tech works. I spent spent several more minutes trying to find technical details. Like how long until the jacket runs out of battery, assuming it has one... But, I did confirm that the jacket is washable, so there's that.
Have you thought that maybe you're not the target audience for that page, and that most people in the world are not interested in the technical details as you are?
He didn't ask for technical details, he asked what the * is this? But maybe the target audience are extravagant billionaires who will buy anything with a logo, regardless of what it actually is.
Specifically tailored with the urban cyclist in mind, the Levi’s Commuter Trucker Jacket was designed for getting around the city. The jacket features articulated shoulders to provide extra room to maneuver, reflectors, and a dropped hem to keep you covered as you ride. You can easily access your digital world because Jacquard technology is woven right into the sleeve.
Tiny electronics contained in the flexible snap tag connect the Jacquard Threads in the jacket’s cuff to your mobile device.1 The snap tag lets you know about incoming information, like a phone call2, by giving you light and haptic feedback. Inspired by a strap that you would see on a cuff, it looks and feels like it’s a part of the jacket. The tag also houses the battery which can last up to 2 weeks between USB charges.3
Customize and control your jacket with the Jacquard app. Abilities let you control messages, phone calls, navigation, music4, and more. Assign and reassign different abilities to the gestures you want to use and decide when you want to be notified by LED and/or haptic feedback.
I feel like we are pushing this wearable tech thing too hard. Pushing all the cool ways we can put stuff into things (ordering pizza from your shoes, snapchatting from your glasses) but they ALWAYS boil down to "You can touch XYZ instead of your phone to pause your music".
When we will get some decent applications, instead of enhancing the form
One way to look at wearable tech is as an extension of the surface of your smartphone. If you can interact with your phone throughout your clothing, there could be a lot of room for (warning, buzzword!) innovation there.
Extension of the touch sensing aspect of the phone screen, not the display aspect. Extending one without the other leads to over-engineered pause buttons, is what the parent comment was saying I think. When the number of unlabeled buttons get much higher than 1, people start to get confused.
I agree in part, just think that the jacket needs to be paired with a HUD or maybe have control/button labels that can shine through the fabric in order to open up that innovation.
I'm not sure we need screens on our jackets, we just need two-way communication. Right now, Jacquard only allows one-way communication (human -> device), but perhaps there could be a touch-sensitive way for the device to communicate as well.
This would be huge for things like heart monitors and emergency phone calls. A lot of room for "cool social apps for teens", and almost definitely for gaming/VR.
Good point. The two paths on a phone are touch/mic/gyro input and screen/speakers/vibe output, but we don't need all three of those outputs for clothing-based touch input to work.
Yes, this. If we didn't have phones as much as pervasive connectivity, through whatever network link is nearby (a phone, a watch, or a building with wifi), then the idea of how we interface with software changes. We could do it though voice like Alexa, or through smaller interface devices including those woven in.
This is kind of sad. Computers in general should let us do more stuff outside corporate world. That's pretty much the definition of empowering humans. But I guess it doesn't monetize well enough.
This is almost surely wrong but you made the intentionally vague comment so it’s not so easy to point out where you’re wrong. You might claim, for example, that tasks like email or internet browsing existed but they did not work as well.
Also, we certainly haven’t run out of things to do with mobile. We’re talking watches, phones, and tablets, etc right?
Yeah I don't really get it either. Why not sell the sensor on its own so that I can wear it on anything I want? What's the added value of having it sewn to your jacket? It's not like it's particularly small or discreet.
This has been a few years in the making. The actual innovation here is the new gesture-sensitive fabric being woven into the denim, not whatever it's talking to.
They can’t really, the thing Jacquard was attempting was weaving an interactive surface into a piece of clothing. The clip on sensor is just a little glue interface that takes the sensor information from the cloth and extracts gestures and send them to the phone.
That was my reaction as well. It is just bluetooth headphones, expect you need to use your own ear buds (probably come with a pair thou). And instead of buttons it has swipe gestures.
2040 startup idea: body-identity-based micro-credit. "You forgot your wallet, but you look fairly legit. For a 5% surcharge, we'll give you that coffee now. Pay this IOU online later. In case of nonpayment, you consent to nationwide tracking by our network of facial recognition drones."
Cool, but the Amazon Go store relies on you authenticating yourself (and presumably paying) via an app.
Do you think they contemplated doing visual ID of the shopper, or would it just be too creepy to walk into the store and have it say "Hello Dave, I'll put it all on your tab!"
Ironically, this mostly depends on you. If you lose the sense of vehicles and people around you, your music/navigation is up too high.
Even with the best isolating headphones (around 25db; most non-IEM models offer much less isolation), you can still hear ambiant noises (unless your hearing is damaged to the point where isolating headphones do make you deaf). And with the standard set of Apple style headphones, they won't dampen the outside world at all.
Losing the ambiant noises will only occur when you overwhelm them out with your music, podcast, or navigation.
So the answer is, "yes." Not, "It depends on if you have ESP."
That said, some noise cancelling headphones offer modes that specifically let road noise through, and folks have hacked them to improve directionality of weak sound signals, and amplify voices. The Parrot Zik firmware comes stock with a 'street' mode.
It's entirely possible to have these systems function as hearing aides. MIT lab folks have demoed small wide-angle optical object detection that's then translated to directional feedback in a haptic belt.
Etymotics are fantastic, but I can hear regular road noise through them with my music turned down. Doesn't require much volume to drown it out, but it's still possible.
There are some augmented reality headphones which can filter out some sounds but not others, so you might be able to listen to music but still hear preferentially hear certain sounds like tyres, engines, etc, or perhaps human conversation. A bit like listening to a podcast on your phone, but having it pause or fade out when the a satnav app wants to tell you to take a turning. Although I think they're still a bit of a work in progress, at the moment the microphones pick up too much wind noise to be able to use them while cycling, but maybe something for the future.
Etymotic had an app for this which used the headset mic to monitor your surrounding and pipe "important" sounds to the headphones. Looks like it's migrated to Essency now.
I hate that the video encourages wearing headphones while cycling. I have a phone holder on my handlebar and turn up the volume on my phone, works great.
Are you referring to headphones or what I do? I can't see how having my driving directions coming out of my phone distracts anyone else... it's not like it's very loud.
I'm referring to the case when the external speakers are playing music. It gets irritating to listen to somebody's music if they are riding your back wheel.
Seriously. Is this something that's already commonplace, and tech like this jacket can make less distracting? Or does this kind of stuff just enable humans to do more stuff with a fixed budget of risk? (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation)
I dig it. Ever since 'smart watches' started I've felt like grown men wearing digital watches is a bit awkward. I'd prefer more subtle things like Google Glass or tech woven into clothing fabrics.
We definitely need to get beyond smartphones and into more ubiquitous form factors so we don't evolve into creatures with our upper backs and necks contorted downwards.
One of the things about watches though is that you can wear them with any outfit. Having functionality built into my shirt is only useful if it is in all my shirts. Otherwise I'm coupling how I want to look with what I can do.
I think of this as a prototype or exploration rather than the final form of the technology. What I 'dig' specifically is the attempt to explore wearables integrated into textiles.
Why get this denim jacket when you can get an iPhone and an Apple Watch?
Jacquard only puts limits on you as it's stuck on that specific denim jacket. Apple Watch on the other hand works with any jacket. You don't even need a jacket with Apple watch, you can wear whatever you want, whenever you want, and it would still work compared to Jacquard which wouldn't.
But why not buy a single smart watch and keep your clothes normal?
I mean, it's seems redundant to make every single piece have similar tech functionality when you can have one watch that works with all clothes.
If you choose to have different tech in different clothes, I don't see why you don't want to combine everything into a watch.
Though there are edge cases where you can want to split it up. But then your customer base gets much smaller.
In this case, it's possible you would actually wear one jacket whenever you were cycling, and the gestures might only be useful for that application. A cycling jacket also probably needs to be water and wind resistant, breathe well, and include reflective panels. The latter at least seems to be included in this design. The idea of clothing engineered to a particular purpose is a good one, in my opinion. For instance to use woven retroreflective material (which reflects back bright light, but looks normal in ordinary conditions) in a casual jacket you would use whenever you were cycling, but could also as a general purpose jacket, rather than having to carry around and put on a lot of separate and unwieldy reflective gear.
However, it does need to use a standard api for communication between the snap tag, phone and jacket, and use a standard physical connector. I'm not going to spend $350 for a jacket that can only be used with one company's proprietary technology, and which has to be replaced when the next generation snap tag / dongle comes out.
Interacting with your clothing is more convenient than interacting with a smart watch in many situations. If one day it costs $0.50 to add, why not add it to every jacket that is made?
What a waste. Why not just have a standard latch design on your clothes and let the user connect and disconnect their devices? It would allow for upgrade without having to discard everything.
Do you really want to buy a new jacket every time you upgrade your touch gizmo or vice-versa? Do you want vendor-locked clothes? It's very user-hostile IMO.
That's basically where this goes if I'm understanding your right, but this is the first one and they're the only one making it so there's no standard. There's two totally separate items here. There's the cloth with the woven in conductive fibers and the Bluetooth dongle that takes that touch data and translates it into commands by extracting gestures. If this takes off in a big way and more companies get into it you'll probably see a standard develop around the attachment between the woven sensor and the dongle to communicate to your phone.
And lots of people decry that. It also is an upper class first world problem. I don't imagine too many poor people have smart phones, and I don't imagine all clothing will have tech interwoven. That may become common among the wealthier classes in developed countries, it is unlikely to be the norm for all people on the planet.
Many poor people have smartphones. They're a big force in getting more people access to the internet and other technology, which is probably overall positive even though it has some significant negative repercussions.
From what I have read, cell phones are really common in Africa. I recently read that in Malawi, one of the poorest countries on the planet, a village may only have one cell phone, but everyone has their own sim card. But, they don't appear to have smart phones.
Poor Americans are not the poorest people on the planet. And talking like they are casually dismisses the existence of billions of people.
I am pretty darn poor for an American. I was homeless until recently. I am well aware that even homeless Americans frequently have cell phones. My latest Tracphone is a smart phone because the Walmart didn't have a dumb phone when I went to get a new phone.
Still, the fact that some Americans are poor and also have a cheap smart phone does not negate the existence of poor Americans who don't have a smart phone, who may not have a phone at all.
The comment I replied to suggested that ALL clothing will someday have this tech. I think that is unlikely. Perhaps "all" (aka most) clothing of fairly well off Americans, but certainly not all clothes on the entire planet.
That may be "pedantic," but the essence of classism, racism, etc is that people glibly say "all people" when they really mean some subset of people. That subset winds up being the only subset that counts. The needs and realities of other people outside that subset are utterly ignored and if you try to bring them into the conversation, you get shouted down, downvoted, etc.
I agree with most of this, but I'm confused about something. Are you saying that it's not OK to prioritize the needs/realities of certain groups of people?
I think there are situations where it's clearly not OK - for example, it's wrong for a government to limit access to voting based on race. But if you're, say, developing a new technology, then almost always it will be initially expensive and limited to wealthy users. Still, if we hadn't had an iPhone for rich folks in 2007, it's hard to imagine we'd be living in a world with decent $40 android smartphones in 2017.
I said nothing about the tech. I only suggested that a specific comment on this forum was a classist framing due to its sweeping claim that this would be for "all" clothing. That's it, and my comment that it was classist got several replies. I have done my best to engage those replies in good faith. That's it.
You seem to be reading in intent which is not there.
The idea is that every piece of clothing one day will incorporate this.
Do you really think it is literally true that the goal is every single piece of clothing on the entire planet will connect to the internet? Or just the clothes of the relatively well off?
Because when you talk like it will be completely universal when that seems rather far fetched, you implicitly deny the existence of those people for whom this is highly unlikely to be true.
Ideally clothing can use your back and stomach as a haptic surface. This offers directional feedback and more channels (an upper and lower feedback band, minimally). It also offers more natural touch surfaces.
Indie folks have been doing this for years, and it's getting quite small. Interested parties are both homebrew hackers and folks working at improving the lives of sensory impairment.
Talk about visceral inputs. What about connected small clothes? When that person who swiped you on tinder will give you a nice little buzz in the right place.
If you're listening to music on the go, you're probably wearing headphones or earbuds, right? Why not just build the controls into that and then you don't need an expensive jacket to handle input?
To answer my own question: because then you can't sell an expensive jacket that does what's already possible without it.
> Jacquard by Google transforms clothing. It’s an entirely new take on wearables that lets you do more than ever with the things that you love and wear every day. With Jacquard technology woven into the very fabric of your clothes, you can connect to your digital life instantly and effortlessly. With a literal brush of your cuff, you can navigate your life while living it.
I can't tell — is this some sort of late or early April Fool's joke? Or have I finally just become such an old fogey that I'm yelling at those goshdurn kids to quit sequencing their nanites on my lawn?
Basically, you can make various gestures on the jacket cuff to control things like playing/pausing music, having an incoming sms read aloud to you, etc.
Maybe useful if you're riding a bike, or other situations where interaction with a screen isn't practical?
But as the "tag snap" is detachable (so you can wash the jacket) it seems you can use it on its own, or with any other piece of clothing. I have a hard time understanding what is the advantage of this over any smartwatch.
At this point it's getting ridiculous. They should have made a detachable touch sensor instead. Why on Earth should I need to buy a particular piece of clothing to get a feature that's encompassed in 1% of it?
I understand MVPs, but if you're going to actually integrate stuff into fabric, make it something more advanced than a single touchpad.
Those scenarios are exactly where I still like using a pebble watch. At least for the music control scenarios I usually don't need to look at the screen.
The other scenarios still assume that I'm wearing earbuds - which arguably brings it's own risks (i.e. when riding a bicycle)
But why the focus on the jacquard threads? If it is just the cuff, why can't we just wear a bracelet or something similar? When I first say them introduce this, I thought there would be more tech built into the jacket itself, but it looks as if the cuff is the only important part.
The underlying tech could probably work on every part of the clothing. They probably found out that some gestures were awkward or unnatural in public, so the first iteration is pretty conservative. Touching your cuffs is pretty unsuspicious.
On that, if you aren't familiar, the name refers to the Jacquard Loom, one of the first "programmable" looms, perhaps most famous for giving us punched cards! Cute name for a project tying computing and fabric goods!
"The Jacket is designed to withstand up to 10 washes with the Jacquard snap tag removed but your experience may vary by usage and wash conditions"
"Note: You can wear the Jacket in the rain, but if the Jacket becomes too wet it may not reliably detect gestures. Allow the Jacket to dry and resume using. The snap tag is resistant to rain and splashing, but it is not fully waterproof"
Sure it's really "Specifically tailored with the urban cyclist in mind"...that's one wet, smelly, denim jacket after a few rides in the UK.
Is this really any worse than a denim jacket? I have a levi's jacket and I've never washed it. It's gotten rained on once or twice but I just dry it off. I also believe denim is anti microbial? Honestly, I only wash my jeans once they've had something spilled on them.
Are you serious about not washing your jeans regularly? I have skipped a couple of weeks on lightly worn pants, but default is definitely to keep it in the wash cycle...
Depends on the jeans, really. I'm pretty sure it's fairly common for people with jeans made from selvedge denim to go months without washing them so they don't fade as much/have a nicer fade pattern.
Yours is at least the second comment talking about it this way, but I am not seeing the word cyclist on the site. I am seeing Jacquard currently offers abilities designed for urban commuters. and Levi’s® Commuter™ Trucker jacket.
Joseph Marie Jacquard was a genius [1]. Google should not use his name and implicitly appropriate his invention without proper acknowledgement. It bothers me that Google hijacked Jacquard's name for their own project, especially with such emphasis on looming.
With decency, they could at a minimum have acknowledged his creations, influence, and inspiration. Their about page [2] does not acknowledge Jacquard's existence. Even worse, Google has trademarked the name "Jacquard", to appropriate that name in relation to tech-infused weaving [3].
Contrast with the Pascal programming language -- Blaise Pascal was honored explicitly when this language was named after him; the creator, Niklaus Wirth, never dreamed of using this name without explicit tribute, since the naming was intended as a tribute.
Yeah, my initial thought was some sort of automated weaving that would shape panels with more threads for the different parts of my body. With a nice amount of thought put into bias and joints. Some techwear companies are doing things kind of like this, looser knit (but the same fit) around the armpits to help ventilation on t-shirts for example.
(to the silent downvoters) I hold that using someone's name without any explicit acknowledgment is an utter shame. Since you disagree by "vote" would you care to make a case instead?
I'm not seeing the use case here, and that's probably why the marketing is so vague. There just isn't a solid one.
There's really no need for this to control music. AirPods now have touch and voice controls built in. Smart earbuds are a much better solution for audio control than smart clothing that controls dumb earbuds.
And if you're getting turn-by-turn directions you'll probably have your AirPods in as well, and you can just ask Siri for updates. That's so much more flexible -- you can ask for so much more than you could via preprogrammed swipes.
That pretty much just leaves the use case of haptic notifications for people who don't want to wear a watch / wristband. I think if you care about this you'll at least put on a fitbit during your commute. And that works with all clothing.
I find the gesture choices interesting and suggestive of future directions for interaction with wearable devices. Their help article on gestures lists the four supported gestures with GIFs. One detail worth noting: "We recommend using four fingers when performing gestures. Note: To avoid unintentional activation, the jacket will not respond to gestures performed with a single finger."
The fabric is more or less just metal threads woven into the cotton, isn't it? Not so different from a bit of shiny styling. The tag is a normal bit of consumer electronics like a smartwatch or an activity tracker.
I'd be curious what the plan for recycling these fabrics is going to be. Microfibers from artificial fabrics are really a problem in watersupplies now. What will this bring?
If they can't even make the product good enough for people to want to buy it without making the sensors stand out as a conversation piece, then what's the point?
This is the definition of a gimmick. How is this superior to the various existing bluetooth-based solutions. Need to navigate without looking at a screen? Bluetooth headphones or a bluetooth connection to your car. Need to skip a track when listening to music? Bluetooth headphones or a bluetooth connection to.... Need to "handle a call"? Bluetooth head-
So, this is a smart watch that is worn on your jacket. What happens when you step into a climate-'controlled' space, where its too warm to wear a jacket? Or when you go out in the summer, where it's too warm to wear a jacket? Or when you go out in the winter, where you wear a coat, instead of a jacket?
A lot of hate going on in the comments here, but as somebody who doesn't really like wearing watches - I'd take the idea of "Subtly vibrate on text/notification received" being built into my jacket over it being built into a smartwatch. Would love to know how much this costs though.
If there is 1 high tech feature that I want from a clothing (I am willing to ignore everything else) is the ability to charge all of our gadgets wirelessly.
I don’t care about controlling music player from my shirt, my phone already dies that.
So basically after reading the comments I should make my own sensor people can hold in their hands or pin to their sleeves then market it? Who wears Jean jackets? Lol
So the exact same haptics tricks that homebrew folks have been using for years, but with more micronization?
Okay. Sure. But they'd better not cut corners in the security of the handshaking and integration or someone's going to be able to hack your pants and make them buzz forever.
+ Self cleaning
+ No need to iron but still feels like cotton, not plastic
+ Synthetics that are breathable like cotton
+ Cheaper
+ Can change colour/styles
Levis makes commuter trousers in the 541 athletic fit. It is not as popular and often on sale. The 511 commuter is different from the normal 511 fit, higher rise and more room in the thigh, and the stretch is more forgiving.
