Saint Laurent Paris Cit-E Smart Backpack With Jacquard.

From Saint Laurent Paris comes the Cit-E backpack.  A variation on the now iconic City which adds technology into the mix to glean those pennies from your pocket once more, since most people already own some version of the City backpack.

First the technology that is in this.  This uses Google's "Jacquard" smart clothing technology.  This functions by having safer thin layers of touch sensitive tactile reactive layers, which are sandwiched into fabric, and then connect to a removable, chargeable dongle somewhere on whatever garment has Jacquard, and then via an app on your device, you can program the reactive layers connected to the dongle to do things.  Examples are you can swipe the area of fabric for volume control or track switching, touch to answer calls, all essentially designed to access your devices functionality without having to go into your pocket, plus the useful addition of notification if it's lost to track it down.

Now Saint Laurent's offering.  The Cit-E has the Jacquard dongle inside, neatly incorporated where the logo normally is, and the reactive surface is on the left strap.  Like all Jacquard devices, the functionality is fully programmable, and it costs only a little more than the City at £750 rather than the non-Jacquard model's £695 price tag.

We think that the entire area of smart fabrics is currently a waste of time.  It would be wonderful if there could emerge intelligent fabrics with high-tech properties that added value, but currently what we have are examples of using technology for its own sake.  There is no single thing this Jacquard technology, or any smart fabrics out there, can give that makes it faster, or more efficient, than using a smart watch or even, god-forbid, removing your phone from your pocket.  And even the single possibly useful trick of tracking your bags location can be done simpler with devices like Tile, and more seamlessly.

If you disagree, it's available now from Saint Laurent online.