Technology, more than anything else, continues to shape the future of our lifestyle. The latest technology bandwagon is wearable electronics.
Still in its early stages, this technology seems to be gaining a lot of attention as it promises to enhance our lifestyles and bring in more convenience.
Useful, intimate and allowing instant access to information, wearables have the potential to invade every walk of life. Wearable gadgets are already marketed to fitness freaks obsessed with tracking every possible metric their bodies produce and thousands are already seeing the world differently with the help of web-connected eyewear, Google Glass.
Others coming out include personal sound amplifiers to help with hearing and headphones inside a headband, programmed to induce better sleep. Also available are heart rate monitors and heart rate earphones, ‘smart’ socks, ‘smart’ bands and many others, all of which claim to make our lives better.
Today’s wearable computers have the ability to enhance the lives of the disabled, improve job performance, increase safety, monitor health, and provide real-time data to the user. In health care, the technology might prove to be cost-effective with devices that can be worn to continuously monitor the health of the heart, glucose or cholesterol and send alerts and data to patients’ computers and doctors.
The future seems to be set for the new technology, which is still in its early phases. Many of the technologies on display at present offer only a glimpse of the future — not necessarily final products that are ready for the mainstream consumer.
Reminiscent of the first generation of the iPod, wearable gadgets are still shaping up to potentially become slimmer, prettier and better. Work and research will definitely improve the performance and scope of the wearables in order to fully realise their potential.
There are currently around 3,000 companies vying for innovations on the new bandwagon.
It is not clear when and how quickly this new wave will become universal. I believe wearables will evolve quicker than previous innovations, and soon become mainstream. Analysts project a boom in sales, but disagree on the extent. For example, IMS Research predicts wearable device sales will climb from 14 million devices in 2011 to 170 million in 2016, whereas BI Intelligence projects 100 million in annual sales in 2014 with a climb to 300 million in 2018. ABI Research anticipates 485 million devices sold in 2018.
At high or low speed growth, wearables are here to stay.
— The writer is the CEO of Emax.