An elastic computer on threads sewn onto clothing can be used to record whole-body data that most medical sensors cannot pick up.

Wearable technologies such as smartwatches monitor body signals, such as heart rate and temperature, but usually only from a single location. This gives you an incomplete picture of how your body works.

now, Yoel Fink The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his colleagues developed a computer that could be sewn into clothing made from chips connected with copper and elastic fiber threads.

This thread has 256 kilobytes of onboard memory around that of a simple calculator, and sensors that can detect temperature, heart rate, and body movement. There is also Bluetooth to allow various threads to communicate.

This means that location-specific data can be collected collectively on the body. It says that it is theoretically used by artificial intelligence to allow for more accurate monitoring of human health. “We're starting to write apps for fabrics, monitor our health and, frankly, we're very close to the point where we can do all sorts of things that our phones can't.”

To create individual threads, Fink and his team folded the chips into conductive boxes and connected them to copper wire. The wire was then wrapped in a protective plastic casing and pulled into a thin tube that could be covered with fabrics such as cotton or synthetic Kevlar.

To test them, four fibers were sewn onto the feet and arms of human clothes. Researchers found that they could identify various movements a person has made, such as lunges, squats, and arm circles.

The team is currently testing thread-computer-made clothing on an Arctic expedition as part of Operation Nanook, an annual military exercise led by the Canadian Army. Clothes record temperature and data from various parts of the body. Fink says it could one day help protect people in extreme circumstances.

Not only does it record, but it says this could help vulnerable people detect dangerous falls. Theo Hughes-Riley At Nottingham Trent University, England.

Without the need to wire the sensors together, the design becomes much simpler than other electronic fabrics, he says. Researchers also demonstrated that the thread can be washed, but only water was used, not detergent. Therefore, durability in everyday use must be proven before it is widely adopted, says Hughes Riley.