Top Story, Health IT

BeBop Sensors CEO shares his journey from building musical instruments to smart fabrics

As the company’s smart fabric technology has evolved, so has the understanding of sensors and their potential applications from would-be customers.

Keith mcmillen headshotheadshotThe wearables market is still relatively early in its evolution, as far as clinically validated technologies are concerned. But the ambitions for this space only seem to be limited by the imagination of developers balanced by the practical realities of cost and production capabilities. Entrepreneurs who come into healthcare from other industries also offer a unique perspective of what’s needed and how they can deliver it.

For BeBop Sensors CEO Keith McMillen, the music business isn’t as far away from producing fabrics embedded with sensors as it sounds. McMillen shared his thoughts in a phone interview after the company filed an amended Form D filing on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s website showing it has raised a little less than $1 million in the past year, totaling more than $4.4 million to date.

In addition to BeBop Sensors, McMillen runs Keith McMillen Instruments, which builds electronic instruments.

“Building instruments like violins and guitars, you get a view on craftsmanship that adds a different element. I have been able to bring that expertise, attention to detail, and fluidity in the design. It really helps to have a design aesthetic that’s shared and sets us apart from how we view a problem and what we demand from ourselves.”

McMillen’s business has developed sensors with conductive ink. Its placement and the patterns they create with it depend on the type smart fabric it develops. “It’s like having a good microphone that picks up every instrument in the orchestra,” McMillen said.

The company has developed a varied wardrobe of smart fabrics across felts, synthetic silks, and other technical fabrics designed to measure things like motion, force, location, weight, size and shape.

The applications vary from pressure sensors in a car seat to help determine the weight of the driver as a factor of airbag deployment to hospital bed sheets to help predict the risk of bedsores. The automotive industry is where its lead products will go first.

The company works with suppliers to these businesses. It is looking for and working with original equipment manufacturers that are the experts in several different verticals.

The point of embedding sensors in fabric is to make the collection of data so passive while minimizing the amount of energy the sensors require to collect data, they become “forgettables,” as McMillen puts it. But as other companies have found, balancing the need for accuracy with the need to prevent things like skin irritation can be tricky to solve. Still, after six years of developing its technology, McMillen estimates that the company is about 12 months away from bringing its first wearable to market — an insole that can measure gait. The idea is to collect data with an eye to predicting adverse events.

As the company’s smart fabric technology has evolved, so has the understanding of sensors and their potential applications from would-be customers.

“The ability to articulate need has improved tremendously, McMillen said. “That’s really been fantastic. When someone comes in with the desire but not the design, the project goes nowhere. But we have seen people show up with a clear sense of [their] need, articulating a design, and an understanding of tradeoffs.”

They’re not surprised to hear there are tradeoffs, because they expect them, McMillen added.

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