Smartex has created new clothing that will not only keep you warm, but will keep you healthy. Dubbed, the “Wealthy” outfit, it is one of Smartex’s latest creations.

Powered by a tiny embedded lithium battery, it’s a washable unitard that reads the wearer’s vital signs and beams the data wirelessly to a computer. Information on posture and movement is measured by the stress on sensors built into the garment. Other components gauge electrical activity, yielding EKG data. Heat sensors measure temperature. In the not-so-distant future, De Rossi says, health professionals will be able to monitor cardiac patients by unobtrusively tracking their vital signs as they go about their lives.

The challenge in incorporating sensors into clothing — even skin-tight unitards — is that the fabric shifts when the body moves, resulting in sloppy, irregular signals. To deal with this, De Rossi’s team developed software algorithms to clean up the data, along with code to reconstruct the wearer’s movements. These programs are the real genius behind the company’s work.

While these have a nice potential for those that are handicapped in one way or another, I don’t think I would want to get one.  Any monitoring of my vital statistics is, to me, obtrusive and unwarranted.