Off the rack: Tesseract’s next wearable robot tech — interactive tees with embedded intelligence

It wouldn’t be a Tesseract Ventures original if it lacked hard-wired flair, John Boucard said, showing off the metro’s leading robotics startup’s newest creation — interactive tees. 

“What we’ve developed is some embedded intelligence inside the textiles,” Boucard, founder and CEO, said in a recently released video showing four T-shirt styles — which represent the company’s four robotics studios — in action. 

“I can take my phone and touch the shirt and activate a video,” Boucard continued, showing ways in which the shirts complete simple functions, such as bringing up the company’s website or immediately launching a phone call to the startup’s main office.

John Boucard, Tesseract Ventures

In the demo video, the founder scans a portion of the “Experiential Entertainment” T-shirt, bringing up a YouTube video associated with a line of children’s toys — Nanables — first imagined by Tesseract’s creative team in 2018.

Tesseract believes the textiles could be the future of marketing, taking plain old tees and turning them into walking and, in some cases, talking billboards for brands. 

“This is something really cool we’ve developed in our advanced [research and development] division called Future Lab. The ability to push information to an Android or iOS phone — only in our T-shirts,” he said, noting Tesseract will program their branded shirts with anyone’s information or links and ship it to them. 

Tesseract plans to begin selling the T-shirts soon, Boucard said, noting other businesses can contact the startup about programming textiles with their own messages or company information.

 

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The development of interactive textiles is one of several monumental rollouts for the normally quiet robotics lab in 2020. 

Tesseract previously launched its wearable proximity trackers amid the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and opened the doors to its new Overland Park-based headquarters. 

“We were a bit mysterious in the beginning, of course we were,” Boucard previously told Startland News. 

“We have a tremendous momentum and focus. … It’s a different kind of company. We have creatives, we have engineers, we have strategists.”

Interns Matthew Claar and Decker Starr with founder John Boucard and Tess; Tesseract Ventures

The company — one of Startland News’ Kansas City Startups to Watch in 2020 — also entered into a partnership with CYDERES, Fishtech Group’s Security-as-a-Service division, as its first partner in assessing, aligning, and servicing needs within the cybersecurity space. 

“CYDERES’ capabilities to analyze unlimited security telemetry with its Cloud Native Analytics Platform (CNAP) and the revolutionary power of Google Chronicle that Tesseract will have access to through the partnership ensures that we will have the same level of incredible insight over our security program as we bring to the table through our market expertise,” Boucard said in a release about the partnership — which also marks the first visible partnership between two of Startland News’ Kansas City Startups to Watch, with Fishtech also being named to the 2020 list. 

“Most importantly, the CYDERES Managed Detection and Response solution will keep our organization, employees, critical intellectual property, and our customer-facing systems safe and secure.”

CYDERES’ analysts are actively using data collected from Tesseract’s PRISM to make security decisions and provide clients with real-time alerts.

Founded in 2018, Tesseract previously occupied space inside Fishtech’s sprawling Martin City-based cybersecurity campus, where Boucard held the title of inventor in residence. 

Click here to learn more about the startup and its origin story.

Tesseract also recently launched a partnership with Lumen Touch, a Kansas City-based all-in-one software provider, to develop health and wellness programs in K-12 schools and collegiate institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond — using Tesseract’s wearable robot technology.

“The flexibility our collaboration provides clients will be critical in managing the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19 and the effect it will likely have on future operations,” Boucard said.

Implementing Tesseract’s PRISM technology as a module of Lumen Touch’s Bright SUITE curriculum and learning management package will provide clients with an accurate tracking system of wearable badges to collect attendance, proximity and wellness data in order to provide real-time results and insights for decision-makers, the startup said in a press release.

Click here to learn more about Tesseract’s PRISM technology.

The solution not only prioritizes students’ safety, but also their privacy by shielding the individuals’ data from anyone without proper authorization.