The wearable wave: How tech on our bodies is redefining daily life

 Wearable technology has quietly evolved from novelty gadgets to indispensable digital companions. Once viewed as niche or even frivolous, smartwatches, fitness bands, and connected eyewear are now embedded into daily routines. They monitor heartbeats, guide workouts, track sleep, enable payments, and even alert to medical emergencies. In the UAE and beyond wearables tech has become a convergence point for health, connectivity, and artificial intelligence.

Over the past decade, wearables have transitioned from early adopters’ toys to mainstream utility with the wearable devices market forecast to exceed $120 billion by 2028.  Smartwatches, led by brands like Apple, Samsung, Huawei, and Garmin, have become the default digital extension of the smartphone.  A 2022 survey (AppDynamics/Cisco) found that around 47% of UAE respondents already used a fitness or health wearable (including smartwatches), while 88% intended to adopt one in the near term.  In fitness, Whoop and Oura have built devoted followings by offering deeper insights into recovery and readiness, transforming the way people train, sleep, and work.

In the UAE, where a culture of innovation meets a health-conscious population, wearables are becoming more and more popular. Retailers and health insurers alike are leaning into the trend with an increasing number offering rewards for hitting daily step goals, others integrating wearable data into preventative healthcare strategies. Other less obvious forms of health orientated wearables are also becoming prominent, one example is AI-enabled hearing aids gaining traction, not just with early adopters but across generations.

Underpinning this surge is one crucial enabler: mobile connectivity. Without fast, reliable, low-latency networks, wearables would remain data islands. The rollout of 5G across the UAE and other global tech-forward hubs has unleashed new capabilities. This form of powerful always on connectivity enables the streaming of high-resolution health data in real time, thus enabling low-energy devices to remain always-on and connected for longer periods of our day.

UAE’s telecommunications infrastructure, among the most advanced in the world, has created an ideal environment for wearables to thrive. The country’s commitment to digital transformation through initiatives like Smart Dubai and the UAE Vision 2031 has fostered widespread adoption of connected devices across homes, workplaces, and public services. In many ways, wearable tech is the most personal frontier of that vision where residents of the UAE literally wear the benefits.

If the past decade has been about data collection, the next will be about intelligent interpretation.

Imagine a wearable that doesn’t just count your steps but notices anomalies in gait, predicts early signs of neurological issues, and books a telemedicine consultation before symptoms escalate. Or devices that offer real-time nutrition guidance based on your blood sugar levels and physical activity, and tailored in context and delivered via conversational AI that it knows will resonate with your psychometric profile. 

That’s the power of the moment of convergence we are in. With wearable sensors becoming more sophisticated, connectivity growing faster and more efficiently, and AI models becoming more intuitive and contextual, we are heading into a world where wearables won’t just record our lives, they will optimize and protect them.

For the UAE, this convergence could have an outsized impact. As the region doubles down on smart city ambitions and AI strategy leadership, wearable tech could play a key role in preventative healthcare, urban mobility, and workforce productivity. With the government pushing innovation in sectors like healthcare, education, and transportation, expect to see wearables embedded not just in consumer products but in enterprise solutions and public services.

Of course, this future is not without hurdles. Data privacy, device inter-operability, and digital inclusivity will be critical to address, this topic is one I have raised in many of my previous articles and is consistent across multiple tech frontiers now; everything depends on data and the storage of our personal data, and with wearables capturing the most intimate of our physical data this puts another accent on the importance of privacy and legislation in perspective. The more devices know about us, the more society must ensure that personal data is protected, not exploited, but evolving legislation as fast as the tech is progressing will be tough.

Wearables are now becoming digital necessities. Enabled by mobile networks and powered by AI, they promise a more personalised, proactive, and predictive world. In a region like the UAE, where tech-forward ambition meets high adoption rates, the next chapter of wearables will likely be written faster and smarter than anywhere else.

Chris Redmond is a global tech executive who is now an entrepreneur in the media tech space