Powering Wearables Workshop

This workshop aims to link and build the Wearables and Energy Harvesting (& Energy Storage) communities in the UK. As such, we will bring together academics, designers and industrialists from the wearables (e.g. smart watches, smart textiles, etc.) sector and academics, designers and industrialists from the emerging energy harvesting sector to discuss how to bridge the gap between power requirements for wearables and electrical energy generation & storage.

Wearables are finding customer acceptance in the medical, healthcare, safety, fitness and wellness markets. Glasses and smart watches provide infotainment and communication. Smart textiles are emerging in the fashion, PPE and military areas.

Wearables with integral energy harvesting will result in greater market acceptance, longer device usage time and overall improvements in the functionality of novel devices. A number of critical issues will be associated with the integration of device elements into wearables (such us embedding ICs, molding, choice of display type, operating systems) which are intended to be addressed in the meeting.

The workshop is also an opportunity to showcase the innovative technologies being developed in UK universities, design studios and industry. There are a limited number of exhibiting spaces for novel devices or prototypes.

The event also aims to discover what the biggest opportunities and challenges associated with this wearables/energy harvesting sector are, so that the KTN can inform Innovate UK, build activities to support UK innovation and target future funding in this field. Current and planned funding opportunities will also be discussed.