With the start of the new year comes new waves in technology. Wearables today have become a statement of sorts and are on the way to becoming an indispensable part of our daily lives - at home, on the go and at work. Blending in with everyday items such as accessories, clothes, watches, eyewear and jewelry, wearables fuse fashion and function.
Though wearables were originally designed with the fitness industry in mind, there are now applications almost everywhere. For example, a warehouse worker using hands-free guidance systems to expedite production, a retailer using a wrist wearable to improve overall customer experience, an enterprise using wearables to improve the health and wellness of its employees, or in mining to alert the workforce of potential hazards.
While wearables remained relatively unchanged in 2016, 2017 presents an opportunity for exponential growth. Here are my thoughts on what to expect from wearable in the new year:
Fitness and Health
Fitness and health trackers are the most commonly used wearables today, with top players like Fitbit and Jawbone ruling the market. Today, wearables can provide resting heart rates, the number of steps you take each day and how often you toss and turn in the middle of the night. 2017 will be the year that fitness wearables will move beyond this simple tracking into more specific biometric sensing. Biometric sensing, like glucose testing and electroencephalogram or EEG (brain) testing, will allow for measuring body health and performance including macronutrient levels, heart health, hormone levels, medication efficacy and more. An impressive wearable showcased at CES this year was the Bloomlife stick-on tracker for pregnant women. The sensor times contractions and measures changes in expecting mothers' patterns over the third trimester.
In addition to biometric sensing, external wearables will be slimmed and refined for smart sensing fabrics. Fabrics will be combined with tiny sensors to create an ultimate body monitoring system, which will capture data, indicating respiration, heart rate and other key physiological metrics. Leading the way in smart clothing tech is the Polar Team Pro shirt. Polar's Team Pro smart shirt monitors heart rate and tracks GPS via capture points embedded into the fabric and a small sensor pod on the back collar. Combined with alerts and notifications, these garments will help in effective health monitoring and to ensure faster action at times of emergency.
Enterprise
In 2017, we will see a mass adoption of wearables in the workplace to streamline operations and increase efficiency and safety. Lenovo unveiled smart glasses that combine augmented and virtual reality with artificial intelligence at CES 2017. The glasses are designed to enhance work performance by allowing you to gather information in your field of view; providing step-by-step directions and instructions for repair, identifying disabled equipment and troubleshooting issues with a remote colleague hands-free.
Also, sectors like warehousing and mining will adopt wearables to help lower insurance costs via hardware that prevents injury and promotes wellness. These businesses will outfit their workers with streamlined wearable devices to help workers communicate with automated machines and robotics for maximum workflow.
Applications for wearables are multiplying rapidly, as numerous sectors find ways of putting this tech to work. Aiming to offer instant and hands-free wearable intelligence, this technology will continue to find applications in the areas of healthy and medicine, fitness, enterprise, lifestyle, the workplace and more.