Wearable technology is one of the hottest emerging industries right now, and all of the major tech giants are battling to release superior products. We now have things like smartwatches or virtual reality googles, and it seems like “smartshirts” are the next product category for the wearable market. About a year ago Ralph Lauren started to test a unique shirt that was lined with sensors at the 2014 U.S. Open. After the initial prototype phase and testing, we can now finally get our hands on one of the first smartshirts in the world, the PoloTech Shirt.
The PoloTech Shirt is one of the first of its kind, and Ralph Lauren exclaims that it is “the next evolution of wearable technology”. The shirt is designed specifically with athletes and fitness enthusiasts in mind, as that is whom would draw the most amount of benefits from this product. The shirt has extremely small microfibers found throughout that are constructed from silver. These silver fibers act as sort of a network and then connect to a small, detachable Bluetooth box. The fibers monitor your heart rate, breathing levels, calories burned, and a variety of other fitness and biometric information which is then displayed in real-time via a smartphone application. If you’re an athlete, this is definitely a compelling product to use.
The PoloTech Shirt opens up an entirely new product category for wearable technology, as this seems like it could very well be the future. However outside of the fitness-related activities, the PoloTech Shirt really doesn’t provide any other benefits. You could also potentially make the argument that a Fitbit offers more-or-less the same features, but I wouldn’t dismiss the shirt entirely. The only real downside to the PoloTech Shirt is the price. Since it’s a smartshirt from a leading fashion label, it’s currently priced at $295 dollars. That’s a lot of money for a shirt, especially given the fact that you can buy smartphones and smartwatches for that price. But still, the shirt is very promising and we are interested to see where Ralph Lauren, and others, take this technology in the near future.
Photo from Ralph Lauren
