Smart Textile Alliance is planning to launch a taskforce on e-textile solutions for Space with especial focus on performance and health monitoring solutions, not least those that can also subsequently be deployed in terrestrial applications. Our aim is to encourage e-textile developers and manufacturers to consider applying for ESA Calls by offering support in identifying funding and development opportunities, supporting development of smart textile concepts, assisting in finding partners and coordinating potential proposals.

Goals for the taskforce are to:

• Draw attention to opportunities for funding smart textile developments in space projects.
• Bring together organisations with a heritage of space development and newcomers with disruptive technologies, concepts and approaches, to investigate potential for collaboration and development of smart textile-based solutions for wearables and space applications.
• Identify relevant calls and partners and develop proposal concepts – aiming to submit at least 1 proposal in 2026.

To support us in this work we have invited both an experienced ESA Project Officer to support the group as an expert mentor, sharing knowledge about relevant ESA funding programmes, upcoming calls and how they are evaluated and supported, together with an ESA-astronaut with a unique background as an orthopaedic surgeon, and who is willing to give feedback on proposed concepts.

We plan for the first meeting to be with a visit to the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne in June, but busy schedules – and astronaut flight training – makes finalising a date challenging – so we first expect to fix the date in the course of May.

More Info

Interested in taking part? Drop a line to info@smarttextile.org with Space Taskforce in the subject line

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STA was founded with the explicit goal of harmonizing technology standards to accelerate time to market and reduce development costs for innovative e-textile products. In October 2025,

STA was part of a €4,8mill HORIZON proposal on MATERIALS FOR SUSTAINABLE SOFT TECHNOLOGIES OF INTERCONNECTED E-TEXTILES addressing e-textile connectivity needs. The project, which starts in June, will develop a ubiquitous interconnection platform based upon interchangeable modular components, the aim being to establish a common standard for integration of industry technologies.

In connection with this project, STA is reaching out to smart textile manufacturers and stakeholders to encourage their involvement and ensure that requirements reflect existing manufacturing processes and conditions, thereby ensuring that developments are compatible with manufacturers preferred materials and confectioning processes.

Involvement will typically involve interviews, where any proprietary information about manufacturing processes is confidential, as well as workshops where stakeholders will have the opportunity to provide input about priorities and give feedback about proposed concepts – potentially influencing the de facto technical direction of the market. In return for your involvement, we offer access to insights and a network of other organisations working with commercial e-textile development and manufacture.

In short, participation enables companies to influence the standard to reflect real manufacturing constraints, minimise future adaptation costs and secures an early competitive advantage in relation to adoption.

More Info

Let us know if you are interested in taking part by sending an email to info@smarttextile.org with Connectivity Taskforce in the subject line.

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The Future of ELECTRONIC TEXTILES RESHAPED will be the first year that e-textiles have their own track at this established electronics trade event, that is visited by over 650 attendees.

The place where technologies and applications meet, the event will bring together component suppliers, specialists in textile-electronics integration, and companies bridging traditional electronics, soft electronics, and textile manufacturing.

Key themes include exploitation of smart textile technologies in applications for high performance clothing, health monitoring and demanding environments such as space and defence, with focus on major commercial trends such as heating, lighting and real-time bio feedback.

In 2026, The Future of Electronics RESHAPED will be in June in USA 2026. In October its’ in Berlin with own e-textile track supported by Smart Textile Alliance – So watch this space!.

More Info

Get in touch with Anne Jensen, atj@smarttextile.org if you are interested in participating at the October event, as Smart Textile Alliance members are entitled to a 20% discount on admission, or a 10% discount on exhibition booth hire.

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Our first gathering focussed on the challenges to adoption of Smart Textiles for healthcare. Here pioneers in the field revealed both the hurdles they’ve faced, and the creative solutions they have developed that are paving the way forward. Participants from across the full supply chain took part, from those developing textile cables and connectors, solutions that facilitate print of insulated circuitry to those developing welfare monitoring applications, technical textiles for the parachutes of the Mars lander and those who perform characterization and test of smart textiles.

Following inspiring presentations from key stakeholders in the industry, the group discussed everything from technological and commercial roadblocks to real-world success stories – and why collaboration is key to unlocking the future of wearable health tech.

Discussions made it clear that these innovators are driven by more than just technical ingenuity – they’re passionate about making a real difference. Their goals are not just to embed cutting-edge functionality into textiles, or even to make their products and devices truly “smart” at the same time as being truly textile, but to create solutions that profoundly improve people’s lives.

In fields as diverse as protecting workers from hand-arm vibration damage, monitoring respiration, movement and sleep quality to assistive technologies enhancing musical experience and providing muscle stimulation for multiple sclerosis patients, e-textiles are often not just an option they are clearly the best tool for the job. Not least due to their unmatched flexibility/conformability, comfort and robustness making them an obvious choice for applications in healthcare and defence sectors alike where strength and unobtrusiveness are essential. However, discussions revealed that in the immature market for smart textile health and welfare applications success depends on more than technological innovation alone. Strong branding and new alternative business models are essential to navigate this evolving landscape and bring these life-changing solutions to the market.

Despite the transformative potential of smart textiles in health and welfare, as the talk by Head of IP Commercialisation at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, Debra Guest, highlighted the road to widespread adoption of solutions faces challenges from technical hurdles and regulatory complexities to translate inventions and developments into commercially viable products. However, discussions also made clear that these obstacles are not insurmountable. By sharing experiences, lessons learned and innovative approaches to adaptation of branding and business models, participants demonstrated how collaboration can turn challenges into opportunities.

A huge thank you to all, for your inspiring stories and willingness to share your experiences. This is precisely where a targeted, intimate format like ours is so valuable: we hope you appreciated the focused dialogue and practical exchanges as much as we did. Likewise, we hope you will join us for new events and activities in the future – and of course that you will get in touch if you can see opportunities to work with Trusted Suppliers and Ambassadors amongst our network!

More Info

Website: www.smarttextilealliance.com
Contact details: Anne Jensen, Business Development Director
Email: atj@smarttextile.org

The post Building Bridges: Bringing Industry Leaders Together Around Shared Challenges appeared first on Smart Textile Alliance.

TechBlick has been showcasing leading-edge technological and industrial process developments for manufacturing electronics since 2021. Their flagship event, The Future of Electronics RESHAPED, is a curated table-top exhibition and Masterclasses for additive, printed, hybrid, 3D and wearable electronics. With US and European venues, this year’s event in Berlin had four parallel tracks and over 100 speakers – and perhaps in the future these events might include an exclusive track for E-Textiles!

Tom Keenan, TechBick’s Business Development Director, joined us for our recent peer-network meeting in London to experience first-hand how TechBlick’s activities might compliment the work STA does to promote the wider industrialization and adoption of smart textiles and to get to know our community better.

“I was honoured to represent TechBlick at the recent Smart Textile Alliance’s peer networking meeting in London. I had the chance to see many wonderful company presentations from Applications and the merging of electronics with textiles and how far manufacturing had advanced in fabrics and garments. Not to mention all the innovations within E-Textiles. TechBlick is proud to be an Ambassador for Smart Textile Alliance and yes we are discussing adding E-Textiles to our future events.”.

In 2026, The Future of Electronics RESHAPED will be in June in USA and October in Berlin – So watch this space!.

More Info

Website: https://www.techblick.com/
Contact details: Thomas Keenan, Business Development Director
Email: tom@techblick.com

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Engineered to perform at temperatures as low as -60°C, the Gentoo Flexible Heater is a thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU)-based resistive heater for lamination to knitted or woven textiles. Ideal for outdoor gear, it retains consistent performance after 20 washes.

If you are looking for a swift and efficient way to implement 12V heating in textile products for extreme cold environments, visit their website below to explore this cutting-edge solution.

Galley

Loomia’s Gentoo is also ideal as seat warming etc. for automotive applications. Custom connectors are available.

More Info

Website: https://www.loomia.com/samples/p/heated-fabric-for-extreme-cold
Contact details: Madison Maxey maddy@loomia.com

The post Loomia News: Heated Fabric for Extreme Cold appeared first on Smart Textile Alliance.

Company overview

Norwegian-owned Protex AS has a 60-year heritage of manufacturing textile products, and more than 10 years’ experience of mass-producing smart textile products via its subsidiary, Protex Balti AS, which continues to drive innovation in implementation of advanced e-textile technologies.

From the 3 production sites in Estonia, with over 200 employees, Protex Balti offers complete solutions for realization of technical and smart textiles products from concept design through product development and prototyping to purchasing, production and delivery of final products. Largest customers are from Scandinavia and Germany, but the company has also recently expanded to the US.

Expertise and Innovations

A key strength of Protex Balti is its ability to blend textile craftsmanship with modern technology. Collaboration with research institutions, industry partners, and the Smart Textile Alliance helps Protex remain informed about market trends and develop solutions that address practical needs. Moreover, sustainability plays an important role in Protex Balti’s operations. The company is exploring eco-friendly smart textile solutions, such as recyclable materials, circular models or energy-efficient production methods. Read the sustainability report 2024 for Protex Balti here.

In 2025 Protex Balti AS received support from the European Union’s NextGenerationEU recovery instrument for the “Protex Balti AS Digital Transition” project.

For customers, Protex Balti’s strength lies in the company’s high-precision production capabilities, which together with rigorous quality control measures, ensure compliance with the strict standards necessary for manufacture of healthcare technologies and personal protective equipment (PPE). They have more than 10 years of experience producing complex garments with integrated conductors, dry electrodes, sensors, and emergency lighting for various applications.

Together with Finnish partners they offer a full range of development and manufacturing services from printed electronics to sensor integration.

Partnering opportunities

Protex Balti AS is not only a manufacturer but is also actively involved in smart textile research and development. The company participates in international projects collaborating across industries to support innovation. Protex takes part in Horizon Europe initiatives partnering with academic institutions to advance textile technologies that can be applied to a variety of sectors, including healthcare, such as health-monitoring products, and a variety of defence and PPE applications.

Protex Balti is also a company with a history of close collaboration with the Tallinn University of Technology and the independent Norwegian research institute SINTEF for a range of innovative client product developments. This not only gives clients access to state-of-the-art knowledge of materials and electronics, it enables Protex to build life-changing products and ensures strong alignment with partners on innovation and sustainability both now and in the future.

The company’s strong partner network and flexibility in production volumes, from small pilot runs to full-scale manufacturing ensures they can meet the needs of businesses at every stage of development.

Gallery

Using cutting-edge equipment for industrial-scale fabrication, Protex Balti employs advanced techniques such as embroidery for precise component placement, sewing and ultrasonic welding for integrating conductive threads and sensors, laser and semi-automatic cutting for accurate textile fabrication, and lamination for adding protective or functional layers.

Certifications

Quality Management System: ISO 9001:2015
Environmental Management System: ISO 14001:2015

More information

Contact: protexbalti@protex.no
Website: https://protex.no/en/about-us/production-services/

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We are seeking partners for an exciting new project, with the aim to develop a universal connector that will form the basis for a future industry standard for power supply and data communication in e-textiles, together with a standardized labelling system for e-textile products.

The project will include partners from across the entire e-textiles supply chain, not only amongst textile and electronics manufacturers, but also developing automated solutions for high-volume connector mounting, product disassembly and recycling. We are already well-advanced in putting together a consortium for this project, aiming to submit a proposal under the Eureka programme’s Xecs Call 4.

We are currently seeking partners with the following profiles:

If your company fits one of these profiles, please get in touch with Anne Jensen or Christian Dalsgaard at STA.

More Info

Contact details: atj@smarttextile.org

For a brief description of the project, click on the links below: 
Presentation: Standardized connector for future e-textiles
Poster: Smart Textile Connector
Xecs Call 4 Timeline: https://eureka-xecs.com/calls/

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Forward looking network for e-textiles specialists

Around the time when the Smart Textile Alliance (STA) was founded, others in the field identified a similar need for a platform to share the latest academic developments with industry and to promote the development of E-Textiles. Led by Dr. Steve Beeby of the University of Southampton and Dr. Yang Wei at Nottingham Trent University, the E-Textiles Network was formed.

This year’s international network conference is hosted by STA’s ambassador, Fraunhofer IZM and for the first time it is supported by a technical sponsorship from IEEE and the IEEE Electronics Packaging Society.

Q: What inspired the creation of the E-Textiles Annual Conference?

A: Smart textiles is still a small community. The E-Textiles Annual Conference was created to bring together researchers and industry from the entire community and to give them the chance to discuss the innovations and challenges facing this emerging field.

Q: What are some of the highlights attendees can look forward to this year?

A: This year we are excited to welcome Helena Almqvist, from Protex Balti AS, as our keynote speaker from industry. Protex Balti is a leading manufacturer of advanced textile solutions for the Northern European market where their technical/ e-textile portfolio now accounts for over 80% of their total turnover.

Of course, we also have an impressive lineup of speakers from among leading researchers. This year our academic keynote speaker is Professor Xiaoming Tao, who is the founding Director of the Research Institute for Intelligent Wearable Systems at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She is internationally known for her leading research work on intelligent fibrous materials, photonic fibres and fibre-based electronic and photonic devices. There will also be lectures from researchers at the University of Southampton, Fraunhofer, IMEC and the University of Boras, as well as industry speakers from the German Military or Meta so there is plenty for attendees to look forward to. There will also be panel discussions on industry relevant topics.

Q: What is the focus for this year’s lectures?

A: Amongst the latest research, topics will include developments on sensors and actuators, innovative materials, functionalisation of fibres, yarns and textiles, but this year we also have a strong focus on sustainability, recycling and circularity as well. On the application side, focus is on health and medical applications, sports and outdoor as well as PPE and innovative fashion solutions. We do our best to cover the entire e-textiles supply chain, so topics range from developments in the technological building blocks to manufacturing solutions and integration methods, test methods, end-use applications and recycling.

Last years E-Textiles Conference took place on the 14-16th November 2023 in Ghent, Belgium with 300 participants

Q: What advice would you give someone attending the conference for the first time?

A: I would recommend that you register early and start planning your visit. Keep an eye on updates on the website, so you can identify the sessions that are most relevant and interesting for you. And don’t be shy to reach out to other attendees and speakers, that is the whole idea behind the network!

More Info

Website: E-Textiles Conference 2024 in Berlin
Contact details: sigrid.rotzler@izm.fraunhofer.de

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