The term “Smart Textiles” refers to a broad field of studies and products that extend the functionality and usefulness of common fabrics. Each technique shows advantages and disadvantages and our aim is to highlight a possible trade-off between flexibility, ergonomics, low power consumption, integration and eventually autonomy. This review focuses on recent advances in the field of Smart Textiles and pays particular attention to the materials and their manufacturing process. Wearable systems will be characterized by their ability to automatically recognize the activity and the behavioral status of their own user as well as of the situation around her/him, and to use this information to adjust the systems' configuration and functionality. Such electronic devices have to meet special requirements concerning wearability. The vision behind wearable computing foresees future electronic systems to be an integral part of our everyday outfits. E-textiles can also more easily adapt to fast changes in the computational and sensing requirements of any specific application, this one representing a useful feature for power management and context awareness. Components and interconnections are intrinsic to the fabric and thus are less visible and not susceptible of becoming tangled or snagged by surrounding objects. Electronic Textiles (e-textiles) are fabrics that feature electronics and interconnections woven into them, presenting physical flexibility and typical size that cannot be achieved with other existing electronic manufacturing techniques.

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