A new wearable electronics sports jersey is being developed to allow Australian rules football supporters to experience the game as the players do. The Alert Shirt is the result of cooperation between the technology company Wearable Experiments and the sports broadcaster Foxtel, the local arm of the Fox media corporation.
The shirt works by receiving live inputs from the sports channel via Bluetooth transmissions to a smartphone with an installed app, which are then relayed to feedback sensors built into the shirt. The system will be configured to mimic scenarios as they happen in a live game, including giving representative sensations of the impact of a tackle and simulating the elevated heart rate of a player about to take a penalty kick.Billy Whitehouse, Wearable Experiments' director and designer, says: 'Wearable technology must be intuitive and seamless within our daily lives, enhancing our life experience while connecting us to other people and the world at large. Our new product is a major first step in the right direction. Alert Shirt is completely unlike any other jersey in the sports market'
Ben Moir, co-founder and Technical Director of Wearable Experiments, adds: 'Alert Shirt is about connecting humans across vast distances and bringing the emotions, frustrations and joys of the active game to life in a way that we've never been able to experience before. It allows Foxtel to engage people via television in entirely new ways. By embracing this new technology, Foxtel is setting itself apart from all other cable TV companies.'
Promoted by some of the Australian Football League's (AFL) highest profile players, like Collingwood captain Scott Pendlebury, the Alert Shirt is being marketed by Foxtel as a part of a $1000 (Aus) (€650) subscription package for the 2014 AFL season which began on 16 March.
Previously Wearable Experiments has successfully integrated electronics into garments to remotely transmit touch sensations and help navigation around an urban landscape.
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