Introduction: What are smart wearables? Welcome to a new world where everything you wear can become a utility. We have noticed creative products like health, entertainment, gaming, and fitness in the markets. Specifically in fashion, items like watches, bracelets, and rings are now developed for health tracking and other advantages.
Smart wearables, a subset of the broader category of wearable technology, are devices designed to be worn on the body and incorporate advanced technology to provide various functionalities beyond their primary purpose.
These devices seamlessly combine into users’ daily lives, offering convenience, data tracking, communication, and usually an element of style. From smartwatches to fitness trackers, smart eyewear to smart clothing, these gadgets have witnessed a significant rise in popularity over the past decade, transforming how individuals interact with technology and the world around them.
Wearables have the considerable advantage of being more personal and linked to the user’s physical body than any smartphone or mobile device. Designers should comprehend this early in product development and stop concentrating only on hand interactions.
What are smart wearables?
Wearables have the notable advantage of being more private and related to the user’s physical body than any smartphone or mobile device. Designers should understand this early in product development and stop focusing only on hand interactions.
As the wearable technology landscape develops and matures, designers will have new options to influence how people interact with the digital Earth. New technology is most successful when it fits or augments natural human behavior. This is authentic for every interface platform, not just wearables.
Smartwatches
One of the most prominent categories of smart wearables is the smartwatch. These wrist-worn devices offer many features, from telling time and receiving notifications to monitoring health metrics and accessing apps.
Leading brands like Apple, Samsung, and Garmin have capitalized on the trend by producing devices combining aesthetics and functionality.
Smartwatches can track heart rates, monitor sleep patterns, measure physical activity, and even provide GPS navigation. Installing third-party apps further enhances their utility, enabling users to control smart home appliances, check the weather, or even play games.
Fitness tracker
Fitness trackers, another essential segment of smart wearables, focus primarily on health and wellness monitoring. These devices, often worn as wristbands, can count steps, estimate calorie expenditure, measure distance walked, and track various exercise activities.
Some advanced models offer continuous heart rate monitoring, sleep analysis, and stress tracking. Fitness trackers empower users to set and achieve health goals, promoting a more active lifestyle.
Smart Eyewear
In recent years, smart eyewear has gained attention for its potential to revolutionize how users perceive and interact with the world. Products like Google Glass, Snapchat Spectacles, and, more recently, Facebook’s Ray-Ban Stories integrate cameras, displays, and wireless connectivity into traditional eyeglasses.
These smart glasses enable users to capture photos and videos from their point of view, display information in a heads-up manner, and even make phone calls through bone conduction technology. However, privacy concerns and social acceptance have challenged the widespread adoption of smart eyewear.
Smart clothing
Smart clothing, while still in its infancy, holds promise in combining fashion with technology. These garments incorporate sensors, conductive fabrics, and other electronic components to monitor physiological parameters, such as heart rate, body temperature, and muscle activity.
Applications range from athletic performance optimization to healthcare monitoring. Smart clothing can provide real-time feedback on posture, detect potential injuries, and even adjust its properties, such as temperature regulation, to enhance comfort.
Smart rings
Beyond these categories, smart wearables continue to evolve and diversify. Smart rings, for instance, pack a range of features into a compact form factor that fits on a finger.
They can track steps, monitor sleep, and provide notifications through subtle vibrations. Payment functionalities are also becoming common in these devices, allowing users to make contactless transactions with a simple gesture.
In medical field
In the biomedical field, smart wearables have the potential to revolutionize patient care and diagnostics. Wearable ECG monitors provide continuous heart rhythm tracking, alerting users to irregularities and potentially preventing heart-related issues.
Continuous glucose monitoring bright patches help individuals with diabetes control their condition more effectively by providing real-time glucose level data. Advancements in miniaturization, sensor technology, battery life, and wireless connectivity have driven the rise of smart wearables.
Additionally, the growing intensity of health and wellness and the desire for seamless connectivity have fueled their adoption. However, challenges such as battery longevity, data privacy, and the need for more accurate sensors persist.
Future of smart wearables
The future of innovative wearable technology is primarily tied to the ability to synchronize data between devices and mobile phones. Energy harvesting is another primary domain that converts body heat, motion, or solar energy into power.
Visionary companies like Epeas are working on ambient energy harvesting, processing, and sensing answers to create wireless devices that don’t need to be actively charged. Another innovation Facebook works on is a non-invasive sensor allowing hands-free typing using your brain activity.
Other breakthrough innovations relate to haptic technology, which can create an experience using forces, vibrations, or movements to control virtual objects. Engineers are working to recreate the feeling of realistic touch by incorporating human-computer interaction.
Haptic devices can be divided into three categories: grippable, wearable, and touchable. Handheld gadgets are used by professionals such as doctors to work remotely or engineers to repair space satellites from Earth. Wearable haptic devices can also communicate via vibration.
It can be integrated into clothing to give directions and help someone walk, hear and see in a virtual world. Touchable interfaces are related to smartphone screens, allowing users to feel different textures remotely. This is especially promising for online shopping and virtual travel.
Conclusion
In conclusion, smart wearables represent a significant technological leap combining fashion, function, and convenience. From smartwatches that serve as extensions of smartphones to fitness trackers that promote healthier lifestyles, these devices have transformed how we engage with technology and monitor our well-being.
Smart wearables will become even more sophisticated as technology advances, blurring the lines between technology and personal adornment while potentially revolutionizing healthcare, communication, and daily life. The markets have seen innovative products like health, amusement, gaming, and fitness.
Also read: How do wearables track sleep?; How wearables can detect atrial fibrillation; What are wearables?