The Machines That Knit The Future
Circular or Flat-bed? Which camp are you in and why does it matter. When knitting the type of machine used is critical to the look/feel of the textile and in the case of Footfalls the output of our sensor technology.
Footfalls’ team of knitters use both small diameter circular machines and 32 feed industry standard flatbed machines. Each of these machine types is capable of intarsia knitting which is critical to the implementation of our patented technology.
Talented engineers at Santoni in Brescia, Italy and Stoll in Reutlingen, Germany each create machinery that means Footfalls & Heartbeats can knit the future of physiological monitoring. The machines are technically designed to knit socks, shoes, cut and sew or full fashioned garments. Each machine has multiple mechanical features that allow almost unlimited creativity. In almost all textile production that creativity is channelled into pattern, colour or design variations.
Santoni X machine
At Footfalls that unlimited creativity allows the team to design movement, respiration, gait, muscle activity or temperature sensors that “vanish” into the fabrics you interact with every day. These sensors are constructed stitch by stitch, row by row, layer by layer on some of the most mechanically advanced knitting machines in the world.
Without the talented engineers from Santoni and Stoll none of what we do would be possible. In fact it is true to say that without the X- machine designed in Brescia, Footfalls would be unable to integrate our sensors into the socks and shoes of the future. That leap of technology has catapulted our technology into revolutionising proactive health and wellbeing in the 21st century.
In current parlance AI seems to be the future of everything. I can assure you it is not. Without the incredibly smart and dedicated mechanical engineers at these two engineering marvels the invisible data collection required to make humanity happier and healthier would be still be a dream. And without the input of two of the most talented knitters on the planet, using experience, creativity and a not insignificant amount of cunning the machines that knit our technology would never realise the potential they have to change humanity for the better.
This why engineering and machinery matters. Humans make stuff and in general to make stuff we need talented engineers. In Footfalls’ case we are lucky that these engineers can make the machinery we need and the textile engineers can coax that machinery into turning out technology that will raise the bar in physiological monitoring for a century to come.
Stoll ADF 32 feed machine
If you want to learn more about our technology, work with this very talented team or suggest a collaboration click below!
