News · 7 November 2026
UW knits magnetic textiles that charge, sense and buzz
A University of Washington team has machine-knitted textiles that do three jobs with one structure: wireless charging, motion sensing and touch feedback.1 They pair extruded magnetic fibres with electromagnets knitted on a digital knitting machine, and report charging a 7.4 V battery, sensing body movement up to 3000 Hz and haptic forces up to 4.2 mN. The paper was published in npj Flexible Electronics on 31 October 2026.1
What they made
- The problem: most wearables use a separate part for each job — a coil to charge, a sensor to measure movement, a motor to vibrate — which the team argues limits how flexible, comfortable and scalable a garment can be.1
- The answer: one soft unit — a magnetic fibre beside a coil knitted from conductive yarn. The same pairing takes in power, turns movement into a signal, or pushes back against the skin.1
- The authors: eight researchers in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle. Devin Murphy, Sen Zhang and Justin Yuhang Sun contributed equally; Jungwon Choi and Yiyue Luo are corresponding authors.1
Why it matters for clothing you touch
The team shows the textiles in garments for smart home control, motor rehabilitation and learning a physical skill.1 Smart home control is the closest to a garment GUI: the cloth is the input and can answer back with a push you feel.
Our view: haptic feedback is the missing half of most touch-sensing clothing — a sleeve that tells you it registered a tap is easier to trust than one that stays silent. Knitting that feedback into the same structure as the sensor is the interesting part.
What is still missing
- Weak force: the 4.2 mN peak is small. Our estimate — about the weight of a small paperclip, enough to feel on a bare wrist but not through a coat.1
- No durability data: the abstract gives no washing results, charging distance or battery capacity, so wear and wash durability are unknown.1
- Lab only: funded by the university's Royalty Research Fund, with no company or product attached — a strong design idea, not something you can buy.1
Sources
- Murphy, Zhang, Sun et al., "Machine-knitted magnetoactive textiles for wireless charging, biomechanical sensing, and haptic feedback", npj Flexible Electronics, 2026-10-31. doi.org/10.1038/s41528-026-00663-0