The majority of smart clothing has generally focused on fitness thus far, but a new pair of connected leggings from Israel has got online shopping in its sights.
LikeAGlove is a pair of smart leggings designed to take the most accurate and intimate measurements of your legs. The idea is to help solve the problem of buying jeans online, which from a survey of female online shoppers was highlighted as the one item of clothing still primarily bought in-store.
The leggings have conductive fibres that measure hip, thigh and inseam size and pull all the data into an accompanying app. It then cross-references these sizes with a database of over 2,000 pairs of jeans, presenting the best fits.
Simon Cooper, CEO of LikeAGlove, declined to comment on which brands were involved, just talked up the benefits for online shoppers.
"Consumers have for a long time struggled with brands' constantly changing portfolio of styles and inconsistent sizing between different brands," he said.
"LikeAGlove solves that problem, in just seconds. With the help of LikeAGlove, everyone now has access to a personal tailor," he continued.
It's a useful application for smart clothing, although whether online shoppers are prepared to spend (early orders are discounted to ) simply to enable them to buy more jeans remains to be seen. With the chance to save money by buying online, the savings could easily pay for the device.
It's also another sign of green shoots for the smart clothing industry, which we recently questioned for the lack of progress in 2015. However, since then we've spoken to the boss of Sensoria, which has led the way in sports data tracking and seen the Lumo Run connected jogging bottoms.
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James is the co-founder of Wareable, and he has been a technology journalist for 15 years.
He started his career at Future Publishing, James became the features editor of T3 Magazine and T3.com and was a regular contributor to TechRadar – before leaving Future Publishing to found Wareable in 2014.
James has been at the helm of Wareable since 2014 and has become one of the leading experts in wearable technologies globally. He has reviewed, tested, and covered pretty much every wearable on the market, and is passionate about the evolving industry, and wearables helping people achieve healthier and happier lives.