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PREDICTED TO BE THE NEXT BIG THING, WILL WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY REALLY CHANGE YOUR LIFE? BY DAVID HANS People today are already pretty much inseperable from technology, whether it’s a smartphone, laptop, or tablet. But that’s not stopping innovators and creators from coming up with ways innovative ways which bring technology even closer to us. According to a February report by the research firm Canalys, wearable tech will a graduate to become a “key consumer technology” this year. The firm predicts the smart wristband segment alone will grow from 8 million this year to 23 million in 2015 and more than 45 million in 2017. It may seem laughable to suggest that people will soon neglect their iPhones in favor of amped-up watches, eyeglasses, rings, and bracelets. But then again, 10 years ago it seemed laughable to think that people would use their smartphones to email, surf the web, play games, watch videos, keep calendars, and take notes—all once core tasks of desktop PCs. One study of smartphone users indicates that on average we unlock our gadgets more than 100 times a day, with some of us pawing at screens far more often than that. Two-thirds of those uses could be handled with the latest wearable smart connected device
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WHAT’S NEW FOR
2014
The wearable future will be here someday. The only question is how soon you’ll be willing to put it on.To get there, though, pure functionality won’t be enough. After all, people could surf the web on their phones; smartphones didn’t really take off until the advent of the iPhone, a device that launched an aesthetic of transformation in the tech industry, as design went from an afterthought to a corporate necessity, a core. It’s an auspicious moment for wearables, one that’s been two decades in the making. Sonny Vu, echoing a sentiment I hear from a few wearables thinkers, says “it feels like 2003 of the mobile era.” That is, right before smartphones came along to invent a new category. A pessimist, pondering the reaction to Google Glass and the Galaxy Gear, the might counter that it’s more like 1993, when Apple’s Newton PDA showed off the capabilities of mobile devices a decade before the public was prepared for it. But unlike with mobile, the barrier to the wearable future isn’t technological innovation; it’s the unique, new challenge of creating something that is not just functional or even beautiful but deeply personal.
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‘CREATORS AIM NOW IS TO BRING TECHNOLOGY EVEN CLOSER TO US, NOW IT’S POSSIBLE FOR ANYTHING TO EASILY BECOME A COMPUTER’ - TIM O’NEIL INVENTOR
It may seem laughable to suggest that people will soon neglect their iPhones in favor of amped-up watches, eyeglasses, rings, and bracelets and that could require technologists to unlearn a great deal of what they think they know. But then again, 10 years ago it seemed laughable to think that people would use their smartphones to email, surf the web, play games, watch videos, keep calendars, and take notes—all once core tasks of desktop PCs. We can already see how wearable devices might peel off some of the phone’s key functions: One study of smartphone users indicates that on average we unlock our gadgets more than 100 times a day, with some of us pawing at screens far more often than that. The tech companies that mastered design will now need to conquer the entirely different realm of fashion. And that could require technologists to unlearn a great deal of what they think they know. For the last few years wearable tech has been the hot new emerging category that was exciting in terms of possibilities, but nerve-wrackingly vague with regards to real-world
profit potentials and consumer interest. But as more and more wearables begin to capture the public’s imagination, and rumors of an iWatch continue to be floated, many of those early fears have been dashed. The unspoken truth is: Wearables are no longer outlier tech, they represent the future unfolding before us in real-time. It’s now just a matter of who gets it rightsent a broad category that can include fitness trackers, smart glasses, smartwatches, clothing with embedded sensors, tattoos and even ingestible pills that gather data while zig zagging their way through your lower intestine. Most wearables are not meant to replace smartphones. Unlike with mobile, the barrier to the wearable future isn’t technological innovation; it’s the unique challenge of creating something that is not just functional or even beautiful but deeply personal. The wearable future will be here someday. The only question is how soon you’ll be willing to put it on
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