Wearable computing promises to transform human interaction with information, yet conventional graphical user interfaces (GUIs) rely on planar, rigid displays incompatible with textiles, which are composed of one-dimensional fibres.
Despite recent progress1,2 in flexible and fibre-based displays, bridging this fundamental dimensional mismatch remains challenging because existing approaches do not naturally provide the digitally addressable, high-throughput, information-rich interfaces required for interactive GUIs.
Here we present a digital pixel fibre integrating addressable pixels, a common propagation-axis interconnection for scalable in-fibre circuitry and a coaxial sensing layer for fibre-level touch localization.
We integrate these fibres into the forearm portion of a garment sleeve to realize a GUI with a 96 × 54-pixel display, 30-frame-per-second refresh rate and 8-bit colour depth.
By merging display, sensing and computation within a single fibre, this work establishes a scalable platform for intrinsically interactive textiles, opening pathways toward garments that operate as fully integrated computational systems.
Wearable computing promises to transform human interaction with information, yet conventional graphical user interfaces (GUIs) rely on planar, rigid displays incompatible with textiles, which are composed of one-dimensional fibres. Despite recent progress1,2 in flexible and fibre-based displays, bridging this fundamental dimensional mismatch remains challenging because existing approaches do not naturally provide the digitally addressable, high-throughput, information-rich interfaces required for interactive GUIs. Here we present a digital pixel fibre integrating addressable pixels, a common propagation-axis interconnection for scalable in-fibre circuitry and a coaxial sensing layer for fibre-level touch localization. Microelectronic components and a touch-gated resistive path system form a linear circuit that acts as both an interactive display backbone and a computational bus, while peripheral multimodal fibre sensors and actuators enable physiological, inertial, optical, and acoustic input and output. We integrate these fibres into the forearm portion of a garment sleeve to realize a GUI with a 96 × 54-pixel display, 30-frame-per-second refresh rate and 8-bit colour depth. It supports dynamic graphics, integrated audio–video playback, wireless data exchange and interactive computing functions, while maintaining the flexibility, washability, breathability and mechanical robustness of everyday textiles. By merging display, sensing and computation within a single fibre, this work establishes a scalable platform for intrinsically interactive textiles, opening pathways toward garments that operate as fully integrated computational systems.
