Imagine adjusting your car’s air conditioning or skipping a song not by touching a screen or using voice commands, but by simply swiping your hand across the fabric of your seatbelt. What once sounded futuristic is now becoming reality with smart textiles — fabrics embedded with gesture-sensing technology.
An interaction design professor and research lab director explains how smart textiles could revolutionize automotive design, shifting away from screens and buttons towards multi-touch fabrics that detect swipes, taps, and presses. These fabric interfaces promise safer, more intuitive interactions compared to touchscreen systems.
Touchscreens have become common in modern vehicles, particularly luxury models like Tesla, where controls are centralized on large displays. However, user studies reveal they increase distraction and lane deviations, as drivers must divert attention from the road.
To solve this, researchers explored 3D-embroidery and computational design of e-textile sensors. By stitching conductive threads directly into automotive fabrics such as leather, they created multi-touch embroidered sensors that enable wireless, gesture-based control. Prototypes demonstrated features like play/pause, track skipping, and volume adjustment, all wire-free and connected via Bluetooth.
Unlike voice input, which remains unreliable in noisy or diverse environments, smart textiles offer a practical alternative. The lab developed three prototypes for steering wheels, seat covers, and seatbelts, proving how seamlessly e-textiles can be integrated.
Beyond cars, e-textiles open opportunities in healthcare and everyday life: woven rugs that detect falls, garments that support people with disabilities, or seat covers that encourage better posture. These applications highlight a broader shift toward “interioraction” and “decoraction” — interactive designs that combine aesthetics, usability, and accessibility.
Ultimately, smart textiles are shaping a future where technology is embedded into the very materials around us, making interactions more natural, less intrusive, and more enjoyable.