AI and IoT will be integral to next generation of clothing
Hyderabad-based Broadcast Wearables has come up with the country's first programmable t-shirt. It changes designs and slogans with a tap on the logo, and with close to 800 LEDs it is powered with a battery that can be charged. Broadcast is taking things to a new level altogether by making this possible. Ayyappa Nagubandi, CEO, talks to Fibre2Fashion about the next step in wearable technology.
How is the stable old t-shirt getting a makeover with technology? Tell us about the origins
I have always been a fashion aficionado and I love to express myself with t-shirts; but my choice was limited. I wanted to create a clothing line that had integrated technology wherein I can express myself with what I wear. That is where the journey started, and we are now at a point where we have integrated technology into apparel to create the world's first touch-enabled t-shirt, Sygnal.
What is the USP of your tech garments?
We are the first company to create touch-enabled clothing. We have authored multiple patents and have plans to branch out into other verticals of the fashion industry. Our unique designs and product tech integration position us in a different league altogether.
How different is your LED-lit t-shirt from the rest available in the market?
Our products are machine-washable, built for rough use and have a programmable API. Sygnal is the only brand in the market with world-first technology and such power-packed features.
What was the initial seed fund that your company received? Who are the major investors?
We are a bootstrapped company. The initial funds were pooled in by our personal savings. We are currently operationally profitable, and any future funding we raise would be used to scale up, automate and expand our manufacturing and research and development.
Currently you are crowdfunding to run the business. How and by when will it be self-sustained?
In 2017, we achieved operational profitability, but as we continue to invest in refining our technology, production methods and various other aspects of the business, we expect a complete self-sustainability within the next two years.
You are also working on creating a wearable phone. Please elaborate.
We are in the prototype stage on designing a phone that can be worn and do all the things that smartphones do today. This is a result of application of our existing technology to a different field. All we can share for now is that we are re-imagining the smartphone as we know today.
Which product category sells the most and in which price range?
We have consistently clocked 300 per cent growth y-o-y since we started out. Women's apparel and men's fashion go neck and neck in terms of sales figures. We are now planning to scale up in the children's fashion market and have set ourselves a target of tripling our revenues by next fiscal. We process bulk orders to major corporates and look to increase our footprint in this segment too.
AI and IoT are bringing about disruptive changes. How is the fashion trade taking to this?
As devices get smarter, data is playing a key role in our decision making. AI and IoT are integral parts of the next generation of clothing where fit, colour and fitness will be integrated into clothing directly. Wellness-driven fashion could be the early adopter, paving the way for full integration of AI into fashion.
So far, how successful have you been in putting tech into clothes?
When you buy a Sygnal t-shirt today, you can express what you feel with a tap. You can wash it hundreds of times, fold it, throw it and it works just fine. Yes, that's today. Sygnal is not only a much-needed disruption in the apparel industry, but also adds fun, zing and excitement to clothing. I'm proud to say that we created a new market called 'smart clothing' in the wearables segment.
Why are you betting big on tech wearables? How do you plan to improve margins?
As our volumes grow, so do our margins. We are bringing in some smart automation to improve our processes in key production areas. We expect to improve our efficiency by 20-30 per cent in the next fiscal by implementing smart automation techniques driven by our internal machine learning algorithms.
Which are your major markets? Which markets do you plan to penetrate in the future?
Global markets have contributed to a higher share of our sales especially North America and the Middle East. We are now planning to ramp up our scale in the domestic market and have set ourselves a target of tripling our revenues by next fiscal.
Tell us about the working of tech wearable.
Our fashion products are integrated with tiny LEDs that connect with the accompanying app to give you complete control over what you wish to say. The t-shirts also come with an API integration that can help corporates get their brand message on all the t-shirts of their employees display the same content simultaneously. Some of the designs use a coin cell battery and some need to be charged.
Is your technology compatible across fabrics? Is this technology patented?
The technology is patented, and compatible across all the clothing line that we sell. Our range currently extends to men's fashion, women's fashion, kids' clothing and accessories. We intend to expand the same technology to various other product lines in 2018.
What is the average cost of manufacturing a Broadcast t-shirt? Do you have your own set-up or get it outsourced?
We have an in-house team manufacturing the Broadcast t-shirts and all the fashion lines that we offer. The cost of production varies with the complexity of design and we try to keep it as low as possible for our end-users.
What percentage of your sales is through brick & mortar and what through the e-marketplace?
We market our products online and work with distributors across the spectrum. Although I cannot comment on the numbers, our online portal is gathering steam and we expect to go big in this area in the next 1-2 years.
Is the smart t-shirt waterproof and washable?
We test the technology and endurance of our apparel before releasing them. As a part of the process, we wash a garment hundreds of times, fold it, throw it and it works just fine. It can be washed in a machine or by hand. Our engineering team has perfected the art of integrating circuits in apparel.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of the tech wearables?
Tech wearables is just like any other wear with technology built on top of it. There are huge advantages of the added tech. For example, consider this: a cyclist riding on a foggy night would be able to make a turn by switching on the indicators inside of the clothing by just lifting hand to a certain degree. Now that has some practical advantages built into it.
What is your R&D team like? How much do you spend on R&D on a yearly basis?
We are very excited about the products our R&D team is developing and can't wait to see them in the market. We are developing a unique women's accessories line that is totally integrated with our patented technology; we are calling it 'Smart Accessories'. We are the pioneers in the smart clothing industry and it is made possible with our hard working R&D team. We want to make Sygnal smart clothing acceptable to everyone as a daily wear with a smarter mix of technology, design and innovation. After all, it is 'Made in India' for the world.
How was your company's performance in the fiscal 2017-18, and also tell us about your future plans.
Our average growth y-o-y is 300 per cent, of which majority of the action took place this year. We nearly quadrupled our revenues and expect more. We are receiving enormous interest from corporates and Western markets alike. This growth is due to a combination of improvement in our production line capabilities and refinement of our technology. We aim to capture a higher share of the emerging wearable fashion technology market through production automations and applications in new segments of wearables.
Can you update us on your expansion plans?
We are currently shipping our product to a few countries in the West. We have seen a huge surge of requests for newer designs, concepts and more personalised apparel. To cater to the demand, we have diversified from four to 40 designs today which range from womenswear, concept-designed apparel and fitness shirts to accessories, bikers' jackets and more. We plan to take our product range to 150+ by next year to cater to this growing global demand.
If we were to ask you to do some crystal-gazing, what are the changes that tech apparel would have seen by 2030?
Smart clothing could become a must-have in everyone's wardrobes. I believe it won't stop with that and all the accessories would become smart and would be able to sync to apparel and match themselves with complementary colours. It is also important to understand that as computing power grows, all devices including smart clothing and accessories would become virtual computing machines that would download designs that you like and show it up.(RR)
