Smart slippers win accolades

Shoes designed to supplement caregiving, allow real-time health monitoring

For Yuan Menghao and Wang Yanzhe, two students of product design and manufacturing, college life is more than studying and lab experiments.

In fact, their biggest recent thrill came after their smart slipper won accolades at this year's online Global Footwear Awards, an event dedicated to photography, design and architecture organized by the Farmani Group in Los Angeles.

The award-winning slippers have sensors knitted into their fabric that sense pressure and offer real-time health monitoring via a wireless link to a mobile app.

"It is as comfortable as a normal shoe and does not carry the stigma of a medical device," said Martijn ten Bhomer, program supervisor for the shoe and a former professor at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China.

In early 2020, ten Bhomer began a research program into smart textile footwear, with elderly people in China, an ever larger segment of the population, as its target market.

A group of seven students studying product design and manufacturing, computer science and electrical engineering began working on the project and refined the design over the course of 18 months.

"I like playing basketball, so I'm particularly interested in how sports shoes are designed," said Yuan, a senior at the university. "When I saw the recruitment notice during the 2020 summer break, I thought it would be good if I could design a pair of shoes myself."

Yuan's partner Wang, who is interested in 3D-knitting technology, was keen on being able to turn textbook knowledge into an actual product.

The slipper went through several critical phases. Extensive research was done before online questionnaires were sent out to target users.

"After doing the market and user research, we listed concrete problems that needed to be solved," Yuan said. "We also wrote computer code and created three iterations of the prototype."

The sensors are part of a system that monitors the wearer's health.

The process wasn't smooth, even once the idea had been fully developed.

"There weremany technical challenges in making the sensors, integrating them into the shoes and developing a wireless transmission system," ten Bhomer said.

Designers and experts from companies in Shanghai helped the group turn their design into a more mature product.

"Designers from Studio Eva & Carola advised on aspects such as pattern and material, as well as the technical construction of the footwear," ten Bhomer said.

Yuan said, "To compete for the China Challenge Cup's leg in Zhejiang province, we went to the Santoni Material Experience Center in Shanghai to make a prototype and test the functions."

According to statistics, there were more than 264 million people above the age of 60 in China last year, representing 18.7 percent of the population.

"I have really high expectations for smart slippers," Yuan said. "Feedback from target users and our elderly family members had many good things to say, and most would buy them if the price was reasonable. I hope they will sell particularly well in places where there are many old people."

The slippers are designed in a way to allow family members and medical professionals to be part of the caregiving process via the special user interface to the collected data.

"The trend is for products to be connected to the internet and interact with the user, and that's what we wanted from our shoes," Wang said.

Ten Bhomer said, "I think that in the future, we will see more products where the technology is so advanced that it fades into daily life to deliver a comfortable and aesthetic experience."

Design drawings of the smart slipper by Yuan Menghao and Wang Yanzhe from the University of Nottingham Ningbo China in Zhejiang province. CHINA DAILY