Interactively mechanochromic electronic textile sensor with rapid and durable electrical/optical response for visualized stretchable electronics

•A novel interactively mechanochromic electronic textile sensor has firstly been proposed.•The sensor demonstrates negative electrical response and simultaneous mechanochromism upon stretching.•The sensor exhibits rapid and durable electrical/optical response.•The sensor shows bright structural colors, enhanced toughness and excellent mechanical resilience.•The sensor can be used as interactive wearable devices for monitoring various human joint movements. Textile-based electronic devices are significant components of emerging wearable electronics. However, the current textile-based electronics are limited by single electrical signal input/output, and unable to be visualized directly by human eyes, restricting their diverse applications in visualized human-interactive electronics. Here, we develop a series of novel interactively mechanochromic electronic textile (MET) sensors for visualized stretchable electronics. The MET sensors are based on the ingenious coupling of new supramolecular photonic elastomers (PEs) with hierarchical-fiber-structured conductive polyester textiles (CPTs). Benefiting from their semi-embedded structures, the MET sensors demonstrate not only distinct negative electrical response but also simultaneous mechanochromic capability upon stretching, via reconstructing conductive paths and adjusting the lattice spacing of the photonic crystals. Notably, the MET sensors exhibit bright structural colors, enhanced toughness (35.6 kJ m−3), excellent mechanical resilience, fast optical/electrical response (≈0.30 s) and recovery speed (≈0.22 s). Most importantly, the structural colors and electrical responses of the MET sensors remain constant even after 30,000 stretching/releasing cycles, showing outstanding mechanical stability, reliability, and excellent durability. Based on these merits, the MET sensors are used as visually interactive wearable devices for monitoring human joint movements in real time. This research provides a general platform for achieving visualized interaction of the electronic textiles, which shows great prospects in wearable devices, human–machine interfaces, and soft robotics.