A smart textile is not simply a fabric with a gadget sewn onto it. In a widely cited open-access review, Stoppa and Chiolerio describe smart textiles as fibres, filaments and yarns, and as woven, knitted or non-woven structures, that can interact with the environment or the user. That idea sits at the centre of this article: the textile itself is part of the function, not only a carrier for a separate electronic box.
It expands the three teaching classes — passive, active and very smart, or adaptive — with sourced examples, the main system components, the ways electronics are put into cloth, a short note on three-dimensional knitting and WHOLEGARMENT for smart garments, applications, the practical challenges of washability, durability, standards and e-waste, a comparison table and a short FAQ. Figures that could not be verified from a freely available source are omitted.
The three-class model is a teaching framework taken from the review above, not a universal product grade and not the official scheme used by ISO. Where a formal document is cited, the wording follows the catalogue abstract that could be checked for this revision.
What are smart textiles?
The same review treats “smart textiles” and “intelligent textiles” as names for textile materials and structures that can interact with their surroundings or with a person wearing or using them. That interaction may be as simple as sensing a change, or it may include a response and, in the most demanding cases, a change of behaviour as the circumstances change.
Two official documents sit alongside that teaching language. ISO/TR 23383:2020, Textiles and textile products — Smart (Intelligent) textiles — Definitions, categorisation, applications and standardization needs, is a technical report. The catalogue abstract states that it provides definitions in the field of “smart” textiles and textile products as well as a categorisation of different types of smart textiles; that it describes briefly the current stage of development of these products and their application potential; and that it gives indications on preferential standardisation needs. The report is listed as valid from 24 November 2020. CEN ISO/TR 23383:2020 is the identical CEN adoption, listed as valid from 31 December 2020. The British Standards catalogue also records the ISO technical report as current, with an ICS entry for smart textiles.
Those official documents should not be confused with the passive, active and very-smart classes used below. ISO and CEN provide definitions, a categorisation, a short account of development and applications, and a pointer to standardisation needs. They are not used in this article as the source of the three teaching classes.
Smart function still starts with ordinary textile fibres and with the manufacturing routes that turn fibre into yarn and fabric. Conductive or functional yarns are added to, or used in place of, conventional yarns; printed or coated tracks are applied to a cloth surface; or a miniaturised electronic part is attached to a textile substrate. The sections that follow take those routes in turn.
Passive, active and very smart (adaptive) classes
Stoppa and Chiolerio divide smart textiles into three subgroups. A passive smart textile can only sense the environment or the user; sensors are essential to this class. An active smart textile can sense a stimulus and react to it; that combination needs sensors and actuators, and the actuators may act autonomously or under a central control unit. A very smart textile can sense, react and adapt its behaviour to the given circumstances. The review cites earlier work by Langereis and colleagues, in Smart Textiles for Protection (2012), for the description of how actuators may be driven.
The diagram below restates that teaching comparison. It does not invent performance figures, and it is not a product rating.
Passive smart textiles
A passive system is a sensing textile. Typical examples discussed in the review include fabrics used to record electrocardiogram (ECG), electromyography (EMG) or electroencephalography (EEG) signals; textiles with thermocouples for temperature measurement; luminescent elements used for biophotonic sensing; shape-sensitive fabrics that follow movement, sometimes combined with EMG; and carbon electrodes used to sense oxygen, salinity, moisture or contaminants.
None of those examples, on their own, makes the textile take action. The garment or fabric reports a state — a heartbeat, a change in temperature, a stretch or a moisture level — and some other system, or a person, must interpret it. That is still a demanding design problem: the electrode or sensor has to make reliable contact, survive wear and, in many healthcare and sports uses, tolerate sweat and cleaning. It is simply a different problem from actuation.
Active smart textiles
An active system adds a response. The same review lists power generation and storage, human interfaces, radio-frequency functions and assistive technology among the functions that take a textile beyond sensing. On the output side it mentions fabric speakers, electroluminescent yarns, organic light-emitting yarns, vibration and bio-feedback. On the input side it mentions capacitive patches and shape-sensitive fabrics, which can be used as controls rather than only as measurement devices. A knitted stretch sensor used as a volume or track control, described in the review in work associated with Philips, is one such interface example.
Power is no longer optional once a textile has to heat, light, move or transmit. The review notes piezoelectric and photovoltaic harvesting as routes that have been investigated, alongside more conventional stored energy. The design question is then not only “what should the textile do?” but “how is that function powered, connected and protected in a structure that must still bend, drape and, in many cases, be washed?”
Very smart, or adaptive, textiles
The third class is the most demanding, and the easiest to over-claim. In the review’s wording, a very smart textile can sense, react and adapt its behaviour to the circumstances. That is a system-design idea: the textile, or the system of which it is part, changes how it responds as the situation changes, rather than repeating a single fixed reaction.
This article treats that class as a research and architecture target, not as a marketing grade. A heated jacket that simply switches on below a set temperature is active. A system that recognises activity or context and changes its configuration or function is closer to the “very smart” description. Concrete, independently verified commercial products in that third class are easy to overstate, so this article does not invent named examples or performance figures for them.
Components of a smart textile system
The parts that make those classes work can be grouped, following the same review, into sensors, actuators, power, data and communication, and the interconnects that join them. A passive textile may need only sensors and interconnects. An active or adaptive system also needs a way to act, a power scheme, and usually a way to process or send data.
Sensors
Sensors detect a change. In textile work that may be electrical activity on the skin (ECG, EMG or EEG), temperature, stretch or pressure, or a chemical or moisture change, as in the carbon-electrode examples already noted. The sensing element may be a conductive yarn, a printed or embroidered electrode, a shape-sensitive knitted structure, or a discrete component attached to the cloth. The textile problem is to keep that element in the right place, at the right contact pressure, without making the garment stiff or fragile.
Actuators
Actuators produce a response: heat, light, sound, vibration, or a change in shape. The review’s examples of fabric speakers, electroluminescent and light-emitting yarns, and vibration or bio-feedback all belong here. Actuation is what turns a sensing textile into an active one. It also multiplies the demands on power, insulation, heat management and mechanical robustness.
Power
Every electronic function needs energy. Stored cells, energy harvesting (the review mentions piezoelectric and photovoltaic routes) and, in some laboratory and prototype work, wireless power delivery to a textile have all been explored. The printed inductors shown later in this article illustrate one wireless-power approach on fabric. Whatever the source, the power scheme has to live with flexing, perspiration and, where the product is a washable garment, repeated cleaning. This article does not invent battery-life or harvesting-efficiency figures.
Data and communication
A sensor reading is only useful if it can be processed or sent somewhere. The review discusses radio-frequency functions and fabric antennas made from conductive yarns that are stitched or woven into the textile. A textile antenna integrated into firefighter protective clothing, reported by Hertleer and colleagues and cited in the review, is one research example in a protective-clothing setting. Processing may sit in a small module that is attached to the garment, or, more ambitiously, be distributed in the textile. Either way, the data path has to survive the same mechanical and cleaning stresses as the rest of the system.
Interconnects
Interconnects are the conductive paths — yarns, printed or coated tracks, embroidered stitches, stretchable links or, in some designs, conventional cables — that join sensors, actuators, power and any processing module. They are easy to overlook and often the first point of failure. A track that works on the laboratory bench may crack at an elbow, open at a seam, or change resistance after washing. Linear electrical resistance of such tracks is exactly the property addressed by the test method in EN 16812, discussed later.
How electronics are integrated into textiles
Stoppa and Chiolerio summarise a wide set of integration technologies: embroidering, sewing, non-woven methods, knitting, weaving, spinning, braiding, coating and laminating, printing and chemical treatments. Conventional cables and miniaturised electronic components are also used where a fully textile solution is not yet practical. The subsections below follow the routes that matter most in garment and fabric design.
Conductive yarns
Conductive threads and yarns are the basic building material for many textile circuits. The review notes that they have a long history in clean-room garments, military apparel, medical applications and electronics manufacturing, and that electro-textiles have been used for antistatic performance, electromagnetic shielding, infrared absorption and protective clothing in explosive areas. Metal monofilaments can be blended with conventional fibres or used directly in weaving and knitting.
The design trade-off is familiar to any yarn technologist: conductivity, flexibility, strength, abrasion resistance and comfort do not automatically improve together. A yarn that is an excellent conductor may be harsh, heavy or difficult to knit or weave. Those trade-offs have to be resolved in the fabric structure, not only on a datasheet.
Knitted and woven circuits
Because knitting and weaving already organise yarns into a repeating structure, a conductive yarn can be placed where a circuit or a sensing region is needed. Knitted structures have the added advantage, for wearables, of stretch. The review discusses knitted stretch sensors, including the interface example associated with Philips and the Intellitex work at Ghent on an ECG and respiration-monitoring suit for children.
Woven structures offer dimensional stability and, where the design needs it, controlled placement of conductive warp or weft ends. Fabric antennas, as already noted, have been made from conductive yarns that are woven or stitched into cloth. The same structural choices that matter in ordinary textile manufacturing — sett, tightness, yarn count, and whether the cloth is knitted or woven — also decide how a circuit behaves when the fabric is flexed.
Printed electronics
Printing and coating can put a conductive track onto a finished fabric or a flexible carrier, rather than building the path from yarn. EN 16812, the test method discussed later, explicitly includes printed or coated tracks among the conductive structures whose linear electrical resistance can be measured. Printed inductors on fabric have also been used in research on wireless power delivery to electronic textiles, as in the example below.
Print quality, ink adhesion, cracking at folds and resistance change after flexing or washing are the practical questions. This article does not invent durability-cycle counts for printed tracks.
Embroidery
Embroidery places a conductive thread on a fabric or a flexible carrier with a programmable stitch path. That is useful for electrodes, antenna outlines and interconnects that do not follow a simple warp or weft direction, and for attaching a conductive path to a cloth that has already been made. The photograph below shows a textile sensor in which conductive threads have been embroidered onto a flexible carrier.
As with any stitched path, stitch density, thread tension and the mechanical mismatch between the conductive thread and the ground fabric all affect durability.
Lamination, coating and attached modules
Coating and laminating appear in the review’s list of integration methods. A conductive or encapsulating layer can be applied over a fabric, a circuit or a component to protect it, to form a composite, or to create a track. Lamination is also used to hold a flexible circuit or a thin device to a textile substrate.
Not every function can yet be made fully textile. Many working systems still combine a textile electrode or track with a removable or encapsulated electronic module. That hybrid approach can make washing and repair easier, because the module can be detached, but it reintroduces seams, connectors and stiffness at the join — which is why interconnect design remains central.
Three-dimensional knitting and WHOLEGARMENT for smart garments
Knitting is one of the integration methods listed in the review, and it is also a complete-garment manufacturing route. SHIMA SEIKI uses the registered term WHOLEGARMENT for knitwear produced in one piece, in three dimensions, on the machine. A dedicated Textile Library article compares WHOLEGARMENT, fully fashioned and cut-and-sew knitting, including the point that some designs may still need a small amount of stitching.
For smart garments, the interest is structural rather than decorative. A complete-garment or three-dimensional knit can place a conductive yarn in a continuous knitted structure, so that a sensing region or a circuit does not have to jump as many cut-and-sew seams. Seams are a common place for a conductive path to break, change resistance, or become uncomfortable. Reducing them does not automatically produce a reliable electronic garment, and this article does not claim a named commercial “smart WHOLEGARMENT” product, but it does explain why seamless or near-seamless knitting is an attractive way to integrate conductive yarns into clothing.
The same limits that apply to complete-garment knitting in ordinary knitwear still apply here: machine and programming requirements, design constraints, and the need to choose yarns that can be knitted reliably. A conductive yarn that will not run on a computerised V-bed machine, or that makes the fabric too stiff for a next-to-skin garment, will not become easier to use simply because the silhouette is knitted in one piece.
Applications
Stoppa and Chiolerio note that smart textiles have attracted interest in the medical, sport, artistic, military and aerospace communities, and they record European Commission support, under the FP6 and FP7 programmes, for work on personal health monitoring and on integrating sensors, energy sources, processing and communication inside clothing. The paragraphs below stay with examples that can be tied to that review or to the official documents already cited, and they do not invent market-size or performance figures.
Health and medical
Fabric electrodes for ECG, EMG and EEG, temperature-sensing textiles, moisture and chemical sensing, and the Ghent Intellitex ECG and respiration-monitoring suit for children are the medical and physiological examples discussed in the review. The promise is unobtrusive monitoring in a garment rather than a cluster of loose leads. The constraints are equally clear: skin contact, biocompatibility, signal quality in movement, and cleaning. The review itself lists flexibility, biocompatibility, mechanical resistance and washability as requirements that can compete with one another.
Sport
The same sensing and interface methods — shape-sensitive and stretch fabrics, fabric electrodes, capacitive patches — are relevant to training and performance garments. A stretch sensor can measure movement or be used as a control. As in medical uses, comfort and durability in sweat and repeated washing decide whether a laboratory result becomes a usable product. This article does not invent accuracy claims for commercial sports garments.
Protective and military uses
Conductive and electro-textiles have a longer history in protective and military clothing than in fashion electronics, including antistatic and shielding functions and protective clothing for explosive areas, as noted in the review. The textile antenna in firefighter protective clothing, cited from Hertleer and colleagues, is a communications example in a protective-clothing setting. Any electronic function added to protective wear has to respect the primary protective performance of the garment; this article does not attempt to specify those performance levels.
Automotive
The review cites work by Dias on electroluminescent yarns used for localised illumination of an automotive interior. That is a useful reminder that “smart textiles” are not only garments. Interior fabrics, seat surfaces and other transportation textiles can carry lighting, sensing or heating functions, with their own rules for durability, flammability and service life. No further automotive figures are claimed here.
Fashion and design
The artistic community is one of the interest groups named in the review. Light-emitting and electroluminescent yarns, fabric speakers and textile interfaces are the functions most obviously open to design as well as engineering use. Fashion applications still have to solve the same interconnection, power and cleaning problems as any other smart garment; a lighted or animated textile that cannot be worn, stored or maintained is a prototype, not a wardrobe product.
Challenges: washability, durability, standards and e-waste
The review is frank about the competing requirements: washability, flexibility, biocompatibility and mechanical resistance all matter, and a wearable textile must withstand mechanical deformation. Those tensions, rather than a shortage of clever sensing ideas, are what still limit many products.
Washability and durability
A garment that cannot be cleaned is difficult to sell, and a circuit that fails at a fold or a seam is difficult to trust. Interconnects, printed tracks, embroidered electrodes and attached modules each have different failure modes — cracked inks, broken monofilaments, corroded contacts, delaminated coatings, or connectors that loosen after flexing. Some published studies report encouraging laundry results for particular constructions; the Stoppa and Chiolerio review itself notes, in at least one such case, that further durability examination is still required. This revision therefore does not repeat isolated cycle counts as if they were general facts.
Design choices can reduce the problem even when they do not eliminate it: removable electronic modules, encapsulated tracks, fewer seams in a knitted circuit, and a clear instruction on whether the product is washable at all.
Standards
Two formal references are useful here, and they should be described accurately.
IEC Technical Committee 124, Wearable electronic devices and technologies, is responsible for standardisation in the field of wearable electronic devices and technologies, including patchable, implantable and ingestible materials and devices, and electronic textile materials and devices. That official scope is the reason TC 124 is relevant to e-textiles. This article does not list individual IEC part numbers unless a catalogue page for that part has been checked.
EN 16812:2016, Textiles and textile products — Electrically conductive textiles — Determination of the linear electrical resistance of conductive tracks, is a test method. The DIN catalogue abstract states that it specifies a test method for the determination of the linear electrical resistance of conductive tracks for textile structures, or intended for application in or on textiles, such as yarns, printed or coated tracks, ropes, ribbons and webbing; that it applies to materials that show ohmic behaviour, and where electrical contact between the measurement electrodes and the conductive track is possible; and that the standard was prepared by CEN/TC 248, “Smart textiles”. It is not a washability standard, and it does not, by itself, certify a smart garment.
ISO/TR 23383:2020, already introduced, remains the official technical report on definitions, categorisation, applications and standardisation needs in this field. Together, these documents outline how the sector is being described and tested; they do not remove the need for product-specific design and evaluation.
Recycling and e-waste
Smart textiles mix fibre, metal, polymer and, often, electronic components in one article. That mixture is difficult to recycle by the routes used for ordinary clothing, and it may bring the product into contact with rules written for electrical and electronic equipment.
The recast EU Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive entered into force on 13 August 2012. The European Commission’s official page states that the Directive aims to protect the environment and human health by preventing WEEE, and by promoting reuse, recycling and other forms of recovery, so as to support the efficient use of resources. It requires the separate collection and proper treatment of WEEE. Official text also notes that e-waste includes items such as phones, household appliances and medical devices, and that it can contain hazardous substances as well as critical raw materials.
This article does not claim that every smart textile automatically falls under that Directive, and it does not invent collection percentages for e-textiles. The design implication is still clear: if a garment or fabric includes electrical or electronic equipment, end-of-life collection, separation of components, and recovery of materials need to be considered at the design stage, not only after the product has failed. Removable modules, identifiable conductive yarns, and fewer inseparable composites make that task less difficult.
Comparison of the three classes
The table below summarises the teaching comparison. It is qualitative, follows the review cited throughout, and should not be read as a test standard or a product grading scheme.
| Point | Passive | Active | Very smart / adaptive |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it does | Senses the environment or the wearer | Senses a stimulus and reacts | Senses, reacts and can adapt its behaviour to the circumstances |
| Essential parts | Sensors are essential | Sensors and actuators; sometimes a central control unit | Sensing, actuation and a way of changing the response as conditions change |
| Typical examples from the literature | Fabric ECG, EMG or EEG electrodes; temperature-sensing fabrics; shape-sensitive movement sensors | Heated or light-emitting textiles; fabric speakers; vibration or bio-feedback; stretch sensors used as controls | Systems that recognise activity or context and adjust their configuration or function |
| Power | Often modest, but a wearable sensor still needs a defined power scheme if it is electronic | First-order design problem: actuation usually needs a stored or harvested supply | As for active systems, with added demand from processing or context recognition |
| Integration emphasis | Reliable electrodes, tracks and skin or surface contact | Interconnects, actuation, encapsulation and a power path that can flex | System architecture as well as textile integration |
| Usual limits | Sensing alone does not take action; signal quality and cleaning remain hard | Washability, durability and comfort compete with function | Easy to over-claim; treat as a research and system-design class, not a product grade |
FAQ
Are “smart textiles” and “intelligent textiles” different things?
In the review used throughout this article, and in the title of ISO/TR 23383:2020, the two names are used together for the same field. This page treats them as interchangeable labels, not as two formal grades.
Is the passive, active and very-smart split an ISO classification?
No. It is a teaching framework set out by Stoppa and Chiolerio (2014), drawing on earlier work. ISO/TR 23383:2020 is a separate official technical report on definitions, categorisation, applications and standardisation needs. The two should not be merged.
Does complete-garment knitting, such as WHOLEGARMENT, make a garment “smart” by itself?
No. WHOLEGARMENT, as described by SHIMA SEIKI, is a method for knitting a garment in one piece in three dimensions. It can help a designer place conductive yarns in a continuous structure with fewer cut-and-sew seams, which is useful for textile circuits, but the smart function still depends on the sensors, actuators, power and interconnects that are integrated. See the comparison of WHOLEGARMENT, fully fashioned and cut-and-sew knitting.
What does EN 16812 actually measure?
It is a test method for the linear electrical resistance of conductive tracks — including yarns, printed or coated tracks, ropes, ribbons and webbing — on materials that show ohmic behaviour and where electrical contact with the measurement electrodes is possible. It is not a wash test and not a certificate for a finished smart garment.
Why is recycling a special problem for smart textiles?
Because the product often combines textile fibres with metals, polymers and electronic parts that are hard to separate. Where electrical or electronic equipment is present, the EU WEEE framework is the official reference for preventing waste and promoting separate collection, reuse, recycling and recovery. The safe approach is to design for disassembly and to check the legal position for the specific product and market, rather than assuming that a garment is either ordinary textile waste or automatically covered by WEEE.
Sources
The claims in this article are tied to the following documents, each of which is freely available from the linked official or open-access page. Isolated performance figures that could not be verified have been left out.
- Stoppa, M. and Chiolerio, A., “Wearable Electronics and Smart Textiles: A Critical Review”, Sensors 2014, 14, 11957–11992.
- ISO/TR 23383:2020, Textiles and textile products — Smart (Intelligent) textiles — Definitions, categorisation, applications and standardization needs, catalogue entry; and the identical CEN ISO/TR 23383:2020.
- EN 16812:2016, Textiles and textile products — Electrically conductive textiles — Determination of the linear electrical resistance of conductive tracks; see also the DIN EN 16812 catalogue abstract.
- IEC Technical Committee 124, Wearable electronic devices and technologies, official scope.
- European Commission, Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE).
- SHIMA SEIKI, WHOLEGARMENT business.
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