Australian designer's wearable tech that doesn't look or feel like tech
We:eX's innovations include a jacket which tells you where to go while jogging by tapping you on the shoulder
Yoga pants that improve your practice, running jackets that tell you which street to take: Wearable tech is moving way beyond a strap on your wrist, and Aussie designer Billie Whitehouse is helping drive it.
The 29-year-old Sydney-native made her name with Fundawear: underwear that allowed the sensation of physical touch to be transmitted from one person armed with a smartphone to another person wearing the garments.
Whitehouse designed Fundawear in 2013 with Ben Moir, an electrical engineer, as part of an advertising campaign for condom-makers Durex - a campaign that ended up winning a Silver Lion at the prestigious Cannes Lions festival.
The enthusiastic response to Fundawear prompted Whitehouse and Moir to set up Wearable Experiments (We:eX), a wearable tech start-up, to create products for retail sale, with funding assistance via a partnership the company signed in March with Sri Lankan apparel manufacturer MAS Holdings.
The Nadi yoga pants and the Navigate jacket are two such retail products, with both due to go on sale online and in some retail stores later this year. We:eX said it had not set the pricing for the items as yet.