Osram has taken a first step toward weaving smart lighting into clothes, announcing workwear that lights up with LEDs, while strongly hinting that interactive apparel is coming including a cycling jacket that illuminates when you hit the brakes, and lights that flash when your pulse rate rises too high.

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　　Working with Fürth, Germany-based safety and sportswear company uvex, Osram is stitching LEDs into safety vests and work jackets. Osram's first stab at textile illumination stops short of interactivity. It simply focuses on giving visibility to workers on job sites.

　　“The textile illumination is incorporated into the safety clothing and ensures greater visibility and hence safety in day-to-day work, for example, on construction sites or in road traffic,” Osram said. “The key advantage of the new technology: Reflector strips on conventional work clothing only reflect incident light, while the light modules ensure active illumination at all times, thus improving safety when working in the dark or in poor visibility conditions.”

　　Osram has been testing the technology for some time. The company used it to help illuminate ice hockey players, sticks, and pucks in an outdoor night game nearly10,000 ft high in the German Alps last year, for example.