CroMorphous was developed at University of Central Florida in The College of Optics and Photonics (CREOL). It works thanks to a micro-wire placed inside each individual thread, which can be remotely controlled in order to slightly raise or lower the temperature of the fabric. The thermochromic pigments in the fabric react to alterations in temperature by changing color.
“When you think of anything you work with on a daily basis, whether it’s how you communicate with people [or] buy stuff, it’s infused with technology. … The goal here is to now take fabrics and textiles and garments and say let’s infuse that with technology,” CREOL optics and photonics professor Ayman Abouraddy told Digital Trends. “I want to be able to communicate with it, I want to tell it how to look, and nothing like that has happened yet. Color-changing is one thing, but our vision is to do much more than that as well.”