DIY Tech Fabric Changes Colors To Match The Rest Of Your Outfit

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a tech fabric that you could just touch to a color and it would automatically change colors to reflect the color of the thing you touched? In that case, you would suddenly have accessories to match every outfit you own since you could change the colors of your accessories at any time. Although this is a bit sci-fi-ish, you can sort of do that now by rigging up some tech fabric of your own. In the example below, this is demonstrated on a scarf.

One of the girly things I remember from the first Total Recall movie was the scene where the receptionist girl touched her fingernails with a nail polish stick and the color on her nails instantly changed. I wish that existed in real life (the technology to do that is probably available). This fabric reminds me of the beginnings of that technology. Although the entire color of the scarf doesn’t change, it’s still speaks to the type of fashion innovation that is inspiring in a techie way.

If you want to make this tech fabric for yourself (which can be created on more than just a scarf obviously), you can access the full tutorial here on Adafruit Learning System. According to the instructions, it uses “the Flora sensor and 12 color-changing LED pixels diffused by a ruffly knit scarf.” You will need to do a little reading before getting into the tutorial, and there are four guides she recommends that you read before getting started. That includes guides on Flora, Flora neopixels, Adafruit color sensors and conductive thread.

You can see all this by clicking on the link above. I can’t wait to see how this type of tech fabric advances in the future. Someday I bet we’ll be able to hit a color button on the outside of our closets and our outfits will change to be whatever color we want. I hope that happens in my lifetime!