If the noughties was the decade of the meteoric
rise of the mobile communication device (tablets and phones) then the teens
will be the decade of the meteoric rise of the “wearables” – and you can quote
me on that. For those not familiar with
the concept of wearables it is the blanket term for technology warn on or
carried on the outside of the body. Wearables
are related to but different from the emerging embedded and ingested devices
that are both just at the start of their development cycles.
Now wearables are nothing new, we have
been living with the modern version of the wearable since the introduction of
the digital watch. However, what
encourages me to make such bold statements about the future of wearables is that
it just seems as though their moment has truly arrived. Why?
Well the recent advantages in several technological areas such as Tech
Portability (size and robustness), Data Analytics and Mobile Access seem to
have paved the way for the creatives to begin the process of using wearables to
refashion our lives with the same kind of scale and impact as they were
refashioned by mobiles and tablets.
Woohoo.
Of particular interest to me, is not so
much the frivolous fashion applications e.g. T-shirts that go a different shade
depending on your mood or even the miniaturised wrist worn Samsungs, Sonys and
soon to be apple devices but the multiple potential business applications. My sense is that wearables will undoubtedly change
the way we work and live.
Here are a few possible application
areas:
Health
and safety in the workplace
This is perhaps the best explored area
to date and a land of opportunity for wearable developers. Multiple applications have already been
identified and some are already developed.
Today’s workers can already have their stress levels, blood pressure and
postures measured (and corrected) and coming soon will be all manner of
additional services and devices assessing our physical state at work. These will include our general levels of
alertness, stress, sobriety, health and energy.
A sub group of these devices, which is already gaining exposure, will
focus on our ability to safely operate machinery (including company cars). These devices will provide a composite
service that monitors both our physical state and our technical capability as
determined by how the machinery responds to our commands/touch.
This should in theory reduce the risk of
accident and ill health at work and put us as the workers into a more competent
and productive space.
Healthcare
provision and health insurance
Of course a closely related branch of
wearable devices to the health and safety workplace monitors described above
will be the personal healthcare wearable devices that we will choose to wear in
order to provide a) the medical professionals that we are interacting with an
in depth and up to date view of our key metabolic indicators and b) to provide
ourselves and/or the emergency services with a range of specific early warning
monitors that activate at the first sign of heart attack/stroke/major accident
etc. These devices are already changing
the way that companies offer health insurance with reductions in premiums becoming
more and more likely for those that can prove (through the info provided from
healthcare wearables) that they are living a healthy lifestyle. They will of course transform the way GPs
“see” patients, enabling them to conduct appointments remotely. This of course is very good news for all
those of us who find it nearly impossible to book a standard appointment at a
time that suits us. Wearable infection
monitors could also enable companies to send home infectious employees at the
first onset of infection reducing general germ spread and safeguarding overall
workforce health. Obviously this would
be very “Big Brother” and intrusive but really quite logical and sensible and
probably a step too far.
Facilities
management through location monitoring
Just like the marine biologists tagging
a school of whales to study their behavioural patterns it will also be possible
to tag the entire workforce to study their behavioural patterns and building
usage patterns. The ability to tag and
monitor the workforce and its patterns of usage within a building would enable
a company to deduce all sorts of information that could prove useful. Which areas of a building are utilised the
most? Are these the areas that will require the most heating and
maintenance? How much desk space/room
space is utilised in real-time? Should
overflow facilities be provided? Where
do people gather to talk? Are there
enough quiet areas etc, etc?
This is of course an extension of the
work being done on developing smart homes/smart buildings. What is interesting is when the users of the
buildings are themselves monitored and add to the richness of the data
available to the facilities managers.
Access
& Security (ID &V)
A closely related area is that of the
use of wearable devices to act as access, security or ID and Verification
instruments. Whilst this is clearly
already a part of modern life through the wearing of ID badges and building
passes the ability to have an attractive and personal “ID bracelet/dog tag”
that operates via NFC technology would be appealing. There is much more that can be imagined in
this space but it’s all pretty much based on the same basic ideas that any
“worn” identifier needs to be matched by a second identifier if the security
needs to be anything more than basic.
Sales
Effectiveness
This next idea is a bit of an imaginary
leap. I want you to imagine yourself as
a salesperson asking a client to wear a monitoring device whilst you are
walking them through the process of making a significant purchase (car, house,
loan etc). The reason you are doing this
is to be able to prove to the industry regulators that when you sold that
particular good or service that the customer was alert, sober and not under
undue duress. Too far? Well, given the increasing need to
demonstrate good sales behaviours in many industries this may not be really
that far-fetched. Meanwhile, closer to
the here and now there are a growing number of wearables that are already being
used to monitor interactions and train new staff (including cameras or voice
recorders). These can only get more
sophisticated.
To conclude, it seems to me that it is
not so much technology that is now the impediment to the rapid development of
wearables but rather our imagination and eye for an application. As a result I think I can look forward to seeing
a massive surge in the quality and quantity of wearable devices and
applications throughout the rest of the decade.
Bring it on.
