Levi’s smart jacket is finally (almost) here

By Heather Hamilton, contributing writer

Google and Levi’s have combined forces to give the world something it didn’t even know it needed — a $350 denim smart jacket. It’s set to be the first commercial product containing ATAP’s Project Jacquard technology, which uses conductive fabric to turn fabric into a connected device that communicates with your smartphone. The Verge reports that the technology would allow a user to pause or change music by tapping a wrist. It operates a lot like a smartwatch without the addition of a smartwatch.

Levi’s Commuter Trucker Jacket with Jacquard by Google looks like any jean jacket, save for the small device on the jacket’s left sleeve cuff, which looks a lot like a security tag, which makes the left cuff both heavier and stiffer than the right. The device consists of a wireless radio, battery, and processor, while a section of the jacket itself is made up of connective yarn, which is what allows you to use gestures like a wrist tap to change your music.

The jacket has an accompanying app, which requires you to define your own gesture-based control scheme. You can gesture toward your body, away from it, tap once, or tap twice, depending upon your preferences. Wired’s Davie Pierce, on a bicycle, double-tapped his left arm, pinging Google Maps and delivering the next turn on his navigation via his phone speaker or headphones. He could access his ETA, and the jacket buzzed and lit up if he received a text or phone call.

The Commuter Trucker Jacket must be recharged every two weeks or so if it is being used just to commute and more often if you wear it all the time. Otherwise, it can still be worn as a regular jacket, and odds are good that it would go undetected.

Levi’s Vice President of Innovation, Paul Dillinger, believes that the jacket doesn’t have to do everything — right now, they’re dedicated to making it the ideal jacket for cyclists and aren’t particularly interested in the larger wearables market.

While the jacket doesn’t do anything that a phone in a pocket couldn’t technically do (albeit, it keeps a rider’s hands relatively free and eyes more focused on the road), it does represent the first of what promises to be an upcoming trend in wearable technology that utilizes conductive yarn without additional bulky equipment and complicated processes. Google has expressed interest in other partners, so there’s no telling what we’ll see next.

Both Levi’s and Google are seeking feedback from jacket wearers, and they’re interested in what users might like to see in future versions.

So, two years ago, Levi’s and Google presented conductive yarn sewn into denim and then announced the jacket at SXSW in Austin in May of 2016, originally set to debut in spring of 2017. Instead, it released in select retailers on September 27 and on Levi’s website on October 2.

Sources: Project Jacquard, The Verge, Levi’s, Wired, Quartz
Image Source: Levi’s