The e-textiles market will reach over $3bn by 2026, according to a research paper by UK-based IDTechEx, a market research company.
IDTechEx have produced a comprehensive guide to all of the key techniques currently in use throughout industry and research. Key advances in the last five years have led to early commercial products, with a market of around $100m in 2015. However, as larger names enter the space and returns on the significant investments made start to surface, IDTechEx forecasts that the market will reach over $3 billion by 2026, with ‘Sports & Fitness’ and ‘Medical & Healthcare’ being the two largest sectors.
According to the research, from clothing to bandages, bed linen to industrial fabrics, new products integrating e-textiles are being created. The market has been slow to start due to many challenges, but with large companies investing heavily and releasing early products, growth to expected to accelerate rapidly over the next decade.
In their purest form according to the definition, e-textiles based on the integration of inherently electrically or electronically active fibres have begun to see integration into early products. However, with many associated challenges around reliability, performance and comfort, there has been a strong push towards other solutions that can achieve better properties including washability, stretchability and new functionalities. The result is a complex ecosystem of different material, component and connection options that are now available for product designers.
