E-paper sneakers can customize fashion wearables

A company called ShiftWear is producing sneakers with e-paper displays on them that can show any pattern or image specified by the user through a smartphone app. The company launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign and has already made $10,000 more than its $25,000 fundraising goal. E-paper is commonly associated with E Ink technology, but that is unlikely what the company is using.

Engadget reported that the display is “e-paper,” which is a common term used for low-powered displays easily seen in sunlight. Unlike the slow-refreshing, grey-scale E Ink screens in Amazon’s Kindle devices, the ShiftWear has a colored screen that can display fluid animations. The technology is probably the same or similar to JDI’s low-powered LCDs that are used in the Pebble Time smart watch. Pebble has also advertised its displays as “e-paper.”

While ShiftWear has already met its initial fundraising goal, Engadget reports that it will take $250,000 or more to make these shoes a reality. There also remains some skepticism about the ability of the ShiftWear team to deliver on their claims. The sneakers make unique use of e-paper screens and flexible displays. As with many crowdfunding campaigns carrying lofty goals, there are a lot of things that can go wrong. Yet there appears to be early excitement about the prospect of shoes that can change their design instantly. The shoes can recharge the batteries while the wearer is walking. There are three different sets of sneakers people can choose from: The L1, M1 and H1. They sell for $150, $250 and $350, respectively, on Indiegogo, and a bundle of all three costs $600.

E-paper displays are finding new life in some wearables because of their power efficiency that allows for long battery life. This has been the case with Pebble’s smart watches, which still have the longest battery life of any of its closest competitors, mainly the Apple Watch and Android Wear watches, and China suppliers have taken note. Linktop Technology produces similar smart watches and Million Concept Electronic makes a smart watch with an E Ink display. Watches are the obvious use for this kind of display technology, though. The ShiftWear sneakers, regardless of the success of the product itself, might get producers to think in new ways of producing wearables that can easily adapt to current environments.