PowerPatterns – soft, mobile, autonomous and beautiful power!

The goal of PowerPatterns is to develop and licence integrated smart textile batteries. The idea is to create visually appealing battery patterns right onto fabrics where everyone can see them. Designing the battery patterns in an aesthetic way creates completely new possibilities for smart wearable and interior applications. We take advantage of the development within printed batteries on foil and transfer the technique to textiles that provides a huge surface potentially used for power storage.

By aiming at decoration and wearability we do not need to think about minimising batteries. This approach will function as an enabler technology for the next generation of Smart Textiles.

By looking at a battery as an asset rather than a necessary evil we can make batteries beautiful and wearable!

Material Research Project

Vision

The vision of PowerPatterns is to change people’s perception of batteries from necessary evil to an aesthetic and sustainable asset. To do so we are printing batteries on textiles based on customised decorative patters in order to create beautiful power sources with smooth and seamless integration with materials as well as other electronic components.

Why

Personally and professionally we have a long term vision of unifying function and decoration. Our perception of technology is that it should be treated as any other material and thereby not as something you hide inside a plastic box.

We wish to bring this perception of technology forward and create products based on this ideology. Electronics have a physicality and we want to take advantage of that in order to make materials powerful in a literal sense. We wish to be unique on the market with a focus on textile based wearables and interior solutions where ‘smartness’, ‘connectability’ and ‘sustainability’ becomes key features.

How

By integrating technology in everyday materials like textiles and textile related elements as inks, sequins, zippers, seams etc. we create beautiful solutions. Textiles are pr definition flexible and in order to work with material integration we create flexible technology that have similar properties as textiles. Using sustainable materials and

creating rechargeable batteries is essential for the success of PowerPatterns. Therefore we work with long lasting and desirable batteries that you want to keep rather that discard as well as a cradle to cradle sustainability, wherever possible.

What

As mentioned we are creating printed batteries on textile. We are using the principle of printed textiles on foil, but with printed batteries on foil the challenge is to minimise the batteries and compete in size and prize with coin cell batteries and miniature lithium batteries. When the battery becomes a decorative and thereby visible part of a design miniaturisation and price becomes less important. Our solution offers customised batteries where the power-pattern is targeted as the final product.

Credit
Design and concept: Hanne-Louise Johannesen, Michel Guglielmi and Vadim Tenner
PowerPatterns is a daughter company of Diffus owned together with Vadim Tenner.
Website: www.power-pattern.com

Collaborator: Institute of Textile Technology (ITA), Aachen University