Wearables.

What Is Wearable Technology? 

It seems like everything nowadays is a smart device. Smart toasters. Smart dog collars. Smart homes. In the age of smart, there is nothing more intelligent or more innovative than the devices being produced by the wearables industry. 

Wearable devices help collect and analyze real-time personal data that informs us on everything from our health to our workouts. They’ve become extremely popular tools to help us stay informed and in touch with ourselves to the point that almost a quarter of people in the U.S. now sport a wearable device.

What exactly is a wearable? Wearables are electronic devices that are worn on a person — usually close to the skin — in order to accurately relay important medical, biological and exercise data to a database. 

Wearables have helped make the IoT industry the $594 billion dollar behemoth it is today (the wearables industry itself is expected to balloon to $111 billion by 2027). Apple Watches and Fitbits are classic examples of wearable technology, but those aren’t the only devices being developed today. In addition to smart watches, VR and AR technology, smart jackets and a wide variety of other gadgets are leading us towards a better-connected lifestyle. Each device’s main job is to collect millions of data points that range from how many steps you take to your heart rate.

Benefits of Wearables

The advancement of wearables has been a welcomed tool for the insurance, healthcare and sports industries for a number of reasons. From encouraging healthier habits to optimizing physical performance, industries have reaped numerous rewards that come with wearable tech.

Wearables Improve Healthcare

The healthcare industry is probably seeing the biggest benefit from wearable technology. Patients who wear these smart devices can measure information ranging from body temperature to blood pressure, which is then relayed to their medical team in real-time. If something looks off, doctors have a quicker way to accurately diagnose and treat a patient. The entire treatment process is now quicker thanks to the data collected by a wearable device because doctors no longer have to run a gamut of tests to determine an illness or disease. They can reference the data collected by a wearable to quickly figure out the cause of the medical mishap.

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Wearables Provide More Insights Into Sports and Fitness Performance

Having all of this health data in real-time is, of course, helping the sports and fitness industries push the boundaries of training. Professional athletes from all over the world maximize their training regimes thanks to the biometric data captured through wearable technology. Elite athletes, from marathon runners to the Golden State Warriors and Liverpool FC, are using smart compression shirts to maximize every move an athlete makes. These smart shirts use a combination of GPS, accelerometers and biomedical sensors to constantly measure the performance of each athlete. Is Liverpool superstar Mo Salah taking the optimal route to a ball? Is NBA all-star Steph Curry maximizing his hydration levels to perform at his peak ability? How can MLB players, like Mike Trout or Kris Bryant, maximize their acceleration out of the batter’s box? Wearable technology is the key to answering these questions and unlocking the optimal potential of world-class athletes.

Wearables Increase the Productivity and Health of Workforces

The business world has benefited from the introduction of wearables to its workforce. Seventy-nine percent of employees who wear a smart device in the office report that the devices are instrumental to their work. Equipping a workforce with wearable devices makes sense for employers. These devices enhance communication, track employee activity, boost job site safety measures and can actually improve the health and quality of life for a workforce. A healthier, happier workforce will then lead to higher rates of employee retention, saving companies thousands, if not millions, of dollars annually.

Examples of Wearable Technologies

Health and Fitness Wearables

Wearables are often associated with the health and wellness sectors. Smart watches, like a Fitbit or Apple Watch, have pioneered the way we track everything from heart rates to our daily steps. Constantly checking in with them has become part of a daily routine for many. 

These watches inherently encourage healthier lifestyles because of the data they collect. Knowing how far you run encourages you to push yourself further to beat your old record. Seeing that you’re almost to your daily 10,000-step goal encourages you to go for a walk around the block. Even tracking your current sleep habits could lead to changes that help you sleep more soundly at night. In a sense, wearable tech is one of the best ways to gamify the health and wellness journey.

Life Insurance Wearables

In order to promote healthier lifestyles, life insurance companies issue wearables to their customers, who then track their health data. Devices like smart watches and fitness trackers provide details on someone’s activity levels, heart rate and other important health data points. The data collected informs premium prices and can paint a more accurate picture about the overall health of life insurance customers. It’s a much more concrete method rather than relying on a vague metric, such as one’s age, when creating an individual policy. 

Gaming Wearables

Gaming is one of the biggest frontiers for wearable technology. Virtual reality (VR) headsets are the most common form of wearable devices in the industry. VR headsets, like the Oculus Rift or the Playstation VR, instantly immerse gamers in other-worldly experiences from the second they strap in. Do you want to know how it would feel to fight with Lightsabers? Maybe you really want to live out your adrenaline junky dreams of racing in the Indianapolis 500? VR wearables are bringing awe-inspiring experiences like these to gamers all over the world.

Wearable technologies taking off in the gaming industry are haptic devices. These smart wearables provide tactile feedback to a gamer in real time. This means that a device takes advantage of a gamer’s sense of touch by providing force or vibrations to a user. To put it simply, haptic vests, gloves or suits make gaming more realistic — a gamer can now feel actual recoil after shooting their virtual weapon or can even experience real feedback of what it feels like to dribble a virtual basketball. Though still in its infancy, haptic technology is poised to make the future of gaming, and wearables, more entertaining and realistic.

Fashion Wearables

It only makes sense that wearable tech has started to permeate fashion culture. Athletes wear full-body suits, equipped with hundreds of little IoT sensors, to measure their every move. The data gathered will help them to better optimize their swing, shot or kick. The consumer wearable technology clothing industry is still relatively new, albeit already intriguing. Smart jackets are being made to automatically cool or warm the body based on body temperatures taken from sensors throughout the jacket. Smart rings are giving people a stylish way to track their steps or measure their sleep habits. Our pants might one day become smart enough to use the thermal energy our bodies naturally produce to charge our cell phones. Wearable devices in fashion demonstrate that tech can be smart and sophisticated all at once.

Travel Wearables

The ability of smart wearables to immerse users in virtual environments has made them a vital tool for the travel industry. With VR technology, companies can provide in-depth virtual tours of hotel rooms, local landmarks and other potential destinations. People can then make more informed decisions about where they choose to stay and visit, resulting in a higher-quality travel experience for customers. 

Many airlines also cater to wearable devices, allowing customers to store tickets and boarding passes in a digital wallet like Apple Wallet. If someone is wearing a smart watch, they can pull up any necessary passes for a faster entry and boarding process. 

Education Wearables 

Education has had to adapt to the digital age, and wearable tech has helped the industry catch up with the latest developments. Smart glasses and VR headsets enable organizations to train students and employees through simulations and virtual environments. Users are immersed in a real-life scenario, allowing them to spend more time learning by doing rather than listening to a lecture or presentation.

In addition, brain sensor headbands track when someone’s mind is stressed and relaxed. Educators can leverage this device to learn when students are pushing their minds too much and teach them how to remain calm while taking in new experiences and knowledge.     

Logistics Wearables 

Another beneficiary of wearables is the logistics industry, which relies on wearable tech to develop more efficient operations. Smart glasses like Google Glass enable warehouse workers to quickly scan barcodes, pull up information from a database and make updates along the way. This process eliminates the need for workers to keep going back to a physical computer, saving them time as they organize packages and items. 

Some VR glasses go as far as to help workers determine their location in a large warehouse, mapping out the optimal route to travel between two points. These glasses can also reveal the best ways to organize packages for maximized storage without crushing lighter items. All these abilities make wearable devices a must-have for logistics companies.