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Comment by tomerico | Hacker News Reader

This is one of the Google projects that I'm surprised still exist. The new technology here is integrating touch sensors into fabrics. You can see examples on the website of clothing and bags.

The main problem is that it's just that - a touch sensor. You still need a separate device that will contain all the other pieces - processor, battery, IMU, connectivity, etc. Once you make that device and wear it - you might as well integrate the input mechanism into it, why bother with using the fabric?

Better yet - integrate a screen into it as well, do you don't just have an odd, input only device, but you can actually see what you are interacting with. Oh wait - at that point you've just re-invented the smartwatch.

Can someone enlighten me on what is a killer use case that is actually better served with the Jacquard technology?

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> You still need a separate device that will contain all the other pieces - processor, battery, IMU, connectivity, etc

That device already exists - your smartphone

If the clothes could somehow tap into your smartphone battery and processor that would have at least made the whole thing simpler to use. As it stands right now, you need to have a separate “tag” that you charge separately and connect to your phone wirelessly. At that point you might as well wear a smartwatch or similar.

Not a great solution, since people often aren't carrying cellular phones, but are almost always clothed. I think the point is that this can be used at almost any time, compared to a phone which someone will often be without?

>people often aren't carrying cellular phones

In 1999 maybe; not in 2021

I think you'd be surprised in much of the non-coastal, non-big-city US, especially in the >40 age crowd.

A few of my older friends just got their first smartphones this year. Most of my old coworkers left their phones either at home or in lockers. I was helping on a farm once (~30 people) and had to ask 10-15 people to borrow a phone before someone actually had a CAT in his truck.

Even in bigger cities, it's become "cool" over the past few years to get dumb phones and/or limited-use phones. Hell, even Google itself designed something [1] to turn your smartphone into a dumbphone (which was basically a joke, but reflects a larger goal toward "breaking smartphone addiction").

[1] https://experiments.withgoogle.com/envelope

That said, I doubt any of these people would overlap with Jacquard's target audience, so I guess we're ultimately irrelevant here.

One of the three use cases presented is competitive soccer. How many people carry their phone while playing competitive soccer? I usually keep the phone in the locker.

The product page is unclear on how much information is cached on the device before you need to re-connect to your phone.

Im intrigued, but this seems more like an early teaser.

I almost never take mine with me places, unless I am expecting to take a call while out. I am aware I'm less common than I used to be in this regard, but I'm pretty sure a significant chunk of people still do this, though probably the majority by now carry them more often than not. In any case, people leave their cellular phones home more than often enough for a device that lives in clothing to provide substantially more availability.

There seem to have been a numbers of surveys of this, most citing Pew research, but I couldn't actually find a pew study to confirm it. I did find thus study that was a survey of grocery users:

https://www.supermarketnews.com/consumer-trends/nine-10-groc...

It shows 89% of those survey use the phone in the grocery store. Separately pew estimates 81% smartphone ownership rates in the US. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/

People not carrying phones outside the house isn't just less common, it's an absolutely tiny edge case which no company is going to redesign their products around.

I don't know if it's that tiny. Like GP (I don't know why he's downvoted) I do own a smartphone but I rarely take it with me when I leave the house. And when I do, it usually stays in the car. I know several people who, like me, are using their smartphones basically only for messaging apps and who just let their smartphone here or there at home and check them only once or twice a day (unless it rings which, arguably, is the device's most interesting use case).

Life is really totally fine when lived without carrying a smartphone around all the time.

It also gives my 6 years old an example of someone she can definitely relates to who doesn't use a smartphone all the time.

I'm not a luddite: but between the 38" monitor at home and the car's navi system, I simply honestly don't have much need for a smartphone.

Now I gotta say this: the demographic that owns a smartphone but doesn't feel the love to the point of living 24/7 with it is probably not the demographic that is going to fancy a tiny electronic device in their shoes and underwear ; )

I don't carry my phone when I go biking. It's either in a plastic bag in one of my rear pockets (the bag is because sweat would damage the phone) or in a phone holder on the handlebar. In both locations the phone is useless to take pictures by tapping a button somewhere on my clothes (same problem with sweat) or on the bike. Of course I don't spend many hours cycling, no more than 12 per week. Still not an insignificant fraction of the time I'm outside my home.

I wonder how that "tap the button and take a picture" works. How do you point the camera to the subject, where is the camera? Not on the phone in my pocket or in a locker at the soccer field.

Eh, some of the use cases are kind of neat - being able to control certain things without taking that device (likely a phone) out of a pocket.

I already control my phone while in my pocket using my headphones. Others do it with their watch. Still others just shout at their phones.

I don't think it's impossible that there's an even better solution hiding in this product, but it really does seem to address a solved problem, to my mind.

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