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Is your shirt smarter than you?
CNET - July 7th, 2015
The tight black tank top beamed a signal to my smartphone, chronicling every data point about my breathing, heart rate and movement.
All while I slept.
By the time the sun came up, my phone had produced colorful charts showing every time my heartbeat quickened (interrupted sleep from 5:44 to 5:45 a.m.), the calories I burned tossing and turning (220) and the precise moment my breathing was most relaxed (4:28 a.m.).
These days, biometric sensors can be added to the fabric of just about everything we wear -- from shirts to shorts, hats to shoes, and everything in between. The smart shirt I slept in doesn't come cheap: The Hexoskin shirt and 2-inch-long power and recording module cost $400. For a lot of us, that makes the Hexoskin and products like it interesting novelties. But for other people, including professional athletes, the information may be worth the price.
"You buy this shirt because it gives you data about yourself that you can't get anywhere else," says Pierre-Alexandre Fournier, CEO and co-founder of Montreal-based Hexoskin.
Welcome to the world of sensor-enhanced clothing, which promises to put a whole new spin on dressing smart.
Complete article: CNET
How Montreal-based Hexoskin is bringing ‘smart clothing’ to both consumers and astronauts
Financial Post - July 7th, 2015
"When Pierre-Alexandre Fournier takes a breath of air, the image of a pair of lungs lights up on his smart phone showing how often and how much he inhales. A graph shows his pulse jump with every heartbeat. He’s also monitoring how much he moves, how many calories he’s burning, and when he goes to bed he’ll be able to collect information about his sleep patterns.
The co-founder of Montreal-based Hexoskin, Fournier said not too long ago getting all this information would have meant being hooked up to a tangle of wires and sensors. Today, he’s wearing a T-shirt with biometric sensors sewed right into the fabric.
“After studying different possibilities we found out that if we wanted to put sensors on people, the best way to do it is to make it part of what they wear every day,” said Fournier.
Hexoskin looks a lot like a regular Spandex sports shirt and is plugged into a recording module about the size of a pack of gum that’s carried around in a pocket. The module sends information to a computer or smart phone via Bluetooth so it can be monitored in real time.
Fournier and business partner Jean-François Roy started Hexoskin in 2006, financing the company through grants, private investments and sales.
Less than two weeks ago, the company’s shirt became the first piece of “smart clothing” to be sold by Best Buy Canada.
“It’s an important milestone, said Fournier. “We feel that we’ve completed a cycle from product design to manufacturing to selling it online and directly by reaching a very large retailer.”
The shirt is entirely designed and made in Canada. In fact, Hexoskin is the first Quebec-made product to be sold by Best Buy."
Complete article: http://business.financialpost.com/entrepreneur/fp-startups/how-montreal-based-hexoskin-is-bringing-smart-clothing-to-both-consumers-and-astronauts
Hexoskin smart shirt on the Rock Star Anthropologist
So, for this first post, we’ll be talking about the wonderful world of wired and wireless wizardry known as CE Week! It’s an annual convention held in Manhattan that sheds light on new and emerging tech for you, your home, and this year, even your pets! For this guided tour of techno-treasures, I’ve decided to break it down by category to make it a bit easier. So without further ado, let’s get started!
View full article →Hexoskin Biometric shirts featured on Time Warner Cable News
Hexoskin CEO Pierre-Alexandre Fournier was interviewed last week at CE Week in New York City by Time Warner Cable News:
"While many wearable fitness devices already tell users how much exercise and sleep they're getting, others are offering new, unique features in an effort to gain consumer loyalty."
(...)
Wearable fitness devices are not just jewelry. Hexoskin shirts promise to measure heart rate, heart variability, breathing, steps and sleep.
"It's all textile-based. It's smart fabrics embedded in the shirt so when you wear it, it feels comfortable, it feels natural," Pierre Fournier of Hexoskin said. "It's very thin. It's very light. It's made of Italian fabric."
View full article →La Presse - From Rosemont to outer space
"They often have no revenue, and keep going on risk and ambition alone. But some startups manage to take off quite spectacularly. The Business Section of La Presse spent a year with Hexoskin. Their product, a high-tech shirt, which they were having difficulty positioning, has now been tested by both astronauts and professional athletes."
View full article →bnetTV interview at mHealth Summit 2012
Tony Sklar of bnetTV interviews Yvan Ouellet, VP of Business Development at Carré Technologies at the mHealth Summit show in December in Washington, DC. View full article →La Presse: The future of information technology is wearable
This article is in French only.
In Montreal, Hexoskin has developed a prototype of a shirt that reads your heart rate, breathing rate and movements. Its first customers are the astronauts of the Canadian Space Agency...
Les Affaires: Recording your vital signs with just a t-shirt
Pierre-Alexandre Fournier is developing telemedecine and telecardiology products that enable patients' health to be monitored and recorded remotely.PBS: Smartphone sensors could revolutionize digital magazines
Hexoskin is a Montreal-based company developing health sensors that can be integrated into clothing. The sensors will interact with mobile devices to collect and analyze health information, and could have intriguing media-related uses.
"People in general are taking more responsibility for managing their own health," said Pierre-Alexandre Fournier, CEO of Hexoskin. "It's going to help preventive health [care] ... A lot of this monitoring can be done remotely now because of the Internet."
View full article →