
- Jacquard design process google how to#
- Jacquard design process google full#
- Jacquard design process google android#
- Jacquard design process google Bluetooth#
Jacquard design process google full#
My colleague Nick Statt actually bikes to work on a daily basis, so he’s better qualified to give this thing a full review - and he will. It’s a silly thing, you’re kind of just pushing buttons and seeing something light up, but the buttons are threads, which is neat. It looks a little like a guitar fret, and you can run your fingers along it and see it working, including how hard you’re pushing down. The most fun you can have with the tech is a screen where you can see the real-time interaction with the touch-sensitive treads. I set it to a double-tap, and when I did that, the phone automatically grabbed my location, queried Google Maps, and then spoke the next direction I needed to get home. My favorite is that you can set your home or work address. Controlling your music is the best part, but there are a handful of other features. The idea is that there are just a handful of actions you need to be doing when you’re on a bike. To start, there aren’t a ton of things you can do with the cuff. It can be configured to only allow calls and texts from important people. It reads texts aloud either through the phone itself (which is meant to nestle is a special inside pocket on the left breast) or through your headphones.

The Jacquard system can automatically tell when you’re wearing the jacket, and it sets up your phone to a kind of biking mode. Again, Levi’s and Google are trying to sell you on a nice jacket that does some extra stuff, not just on a gadget’s technical capabilities.
Jacquard design process google Bluetooth#
But is it any more convenient than, say, smart controls on a Bluetooth headset? Probably not, but it is a neat thing.

It’s certainly a lot safer than, you know, messing with your actual touchscreen while you ride. The idea is that when you’re on a bike, you can just reach over and brush your sleeve to interact with your phone and get audio cues. There’s a forth gesture, just holding your hand on the fabric, which is hard-coded to just shutting your phone up. You can brush in, brush out, and double tap. You then pair it to an app on your phone and go through a little tutorial that sets up the three different gestures you can configure. Okay, but how does it work? As I said, you attach a small little “tag” to the left cuff of the jacket. And working with Levi’s to create the manufacturing process for the jacket, I think he’s come a long way toward achieving that goal. “We wanted to make a garment, not a gadget,” says Ivan Poupyrev, the person in charge of Google’s side of the project. The result is a thing you can actually put in the washing machine and dryer without ruining the circuitry inside. It took a lot of design work to make that happen, because the jacket needed to feel like a jacket.
Jacquard design process google how to#
It’s achieved through yet more simple ideas which turn out to be devilishly complicated to execute.īasically, Google and Levi’s had to figure out how to integrate capacitive threads with a copper core into the actual manufacturing process for a denim jacket, then use a tiny little Bluetooth dongle that attaches to a button to communicate to your phone.

“Jacquard” is named after a loom, and the core idea is both simple and complicated: make fabric touch-sensitive, like the screen on your phone. This one, Project Jacquard, finally made it. We’ve seen lots of weird projects inside Google’s ATAP, but most of them (like the ill-fated Project Ara) have ended up getting scuttled. It comes out of a partnership between the clothing company and a small division of Google dedicated to experimentation. When you talk to both Levi’s and Google, they’re very eager to tell a design story about this jacket, not just a technology story. I’m no fashion critic, but I can tell you I’m impressed with the fit and look of this one.
Jacquard design process google android#
It works with both Android and iPhone, by the way.Ī standard Levi’s trucker jacket costs $148, though Levi’s has been quick to point out that designer denim jackets can run well over $400.

It’s targeted at people who commute by bike, and I think the only people beyond that target market are going to be a few techies and people who just really like jean jackets. Whether those things add up to a $350 value - the price of this jacket - is entirely a different question. And by swiping or tapping the fabric on the left cuff, I have been able to control my smartphone. I’ve been wearing this Levi’s Commuter Trucker jacket for a few days now and it’s very nice. More than a year after it was announced and two years after we first saw a demonstration of touch-sensitive fabric, the Levi’s jacket with a smart sleeve is finally going on sale.
