The smart and interactive textiles market is expected to witness robust growth through 2030 owing to rising product demand in the medical, healthcare, transportation, and retail sectors.

Recently, increasing emphasis on research & development and innovation has been beneficial for the product landscape, thereby improving overall market dynamics. For instance, in February 2022, researchers from the University of Cambridge created a new smart textile display that integrates energy, sensing, photonic, and electronic functions. The textile display is 46 inches in size and comprises energy harvesting, smart sensors, and storage within the fabric that can be used to monitor inputs, operate as a display, and store energy for future use.

In another instance, in July 2021, a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) developed the KnittedKeyboard II, a textile-based musical device with a layout of a piano. The keyboard is made of soft, expressive, and stretchable yarns, and is portable, viable for commercialization, customizable, sustainable, and cost-effective.

Similarly, in July 2022, MIT researchers used a novel production method to fabricate smart textiles that can conform to the body and sense the wearer’s motions and posture. The researchers used thermoforming to increase the precision of pressure sensors that are woven into the multilayered knit textiles dubbed 3DKnITS, which they utilized to make a smart mat and shoe. This technique has potential usage in rehabilitation and healthcare.

The smart and interactive textiles market has been bifurcated on the basis of application, product, and region.

In context of application, the market has been divided into military & defense, retail & consumer, industrial, medical & healthcare, transportation, and others. The medical and healthcare segment holds a substantial share in the market and is expected to register a CAGR of around 27.3% through the analysis timeframe. In 2021, the retail and consumer segment accounted for about 17.3% of the global market.

In terms of product, the smart and interactive textiles market has been divided into chromic materials, wearable electronics, and others. The chromic materials segment has been further divided into thermochromic, photochromic, and others. Among these, the thermochromic segment is estimated to witness steady growth at nearly 24.7% CAGR from 2022 to 2030.

In the regional landscape, the smart and interactive textiles market in Latin America accounted for more than 3.9% of the overall industry revenue in 2021 and is projected to expand at a CAGR of roughly 20.6% over the assessment timeframe. Meanwhile, the Middle East & Africa smart and interactive textiles industry is poised to showcase considerable growth at a rate of above 17.8% through the forecast period.