Electrically heated textiles are being increasingly used in many applications, including clothes, furnishings and medical equipment. Unlike conventional electrically heated textiles, carbon-based coatings such as diamond-like carbons (DLCs) exhibit high chemical stability and effective far-infrared emission, with adjustable electrical resistance. In this study, an arc ion plating (AIP) technique, which can be used for deposition at low temperature, is used to prepare carbon-based coatings on a glass fiber fabric, for use in a flexible fabric heater with a low processing cost and far-infrared emission capability. The C2H2 flow rate and deposition time during deposition are adjusted to study the microstructure of the deposited glass fiber fabric and reveal how they affect the electrical properties and far-infrared emissivity. Experimental results show that the I-D/I-G ratio of the obtained carbon-based coatings, as affected by C2H2 flow rate and deposition time can greatly influence the properties of the film. Ultimately, the lowest electrical resistance of 6.8 Omega and a far-infrared emissivity of 0.83 with the highest heating rate are obtained. These values are close to those of commercially available carbon fiber fabric. Such an AIP carbon-based coating on flexible fabric heater has great potential for use electrically heated products. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.