H&M has collaborated with Boltware, a Berlin-based wearable tech solution company, to develop Wearable Love – a jean jacket that can mimic the feeling of being touched.
The development holds relevance in today’s times when social distancing has put restrictions on human beings to hug and touch.
And that’s where this collaboration will help!
The jacket shoulders are embedded with flexible sensors and tactile elements. The customer first of all needs to download H&M’s Wearable Love app that connects these sensors via Bluetooth for transmitting the signals to the jackets to mimic the feeling of being touched.
Each jacket has a registration code for the app that is given to the customers when they buy them.
The wearer needs to create a profile on the app after which they can invite friends and loved ones via the app’s love list. This allows them to create touch patterns that they can send to the wearer as a digital reminder that they are thinking of them.
The Boltware device is a puck and base that acts as the heart and brain of the garment. The puck is removable and can be charged through a wireless charger and has life of about 2 weeks, while the base remains permanently attached to the garment.
Notably, the puck can also be docked into different pieces of clothing.
Another similar development in Wearable Tech category was by Levis with the launch of Jacquard by Google, Trucker jackets that could sync with the wearers’ mobile device for accessing the calls, messages and music all with just a tap of the wrist.
Another foundation was their new capsule collection ‘Love-Letter’ – a line of upcycled rental only jeans in collaboration with Ganni. These leverage the use of Near Field Communication technology to extract the garment’s history and details about prior renters just by the tap of a smartphone.
