The Uses of Wearable Technology

The wearable technology industry is increasing and is set to revolutionize the future.

FREMONT, CA: Wearable technology's major applications include consumer gadgets like smartwatches and fitness trackers. With the recent breakthroughs in the internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI), however, wearable technology is being integrated into various applications, including healthcare, navigation systems, consumer products, professional sports, and advanced fabrics.

Wearable technology's most popular applications are as follows:

Epidermal skin engineering:  According to ScienceDaily, the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation produced electronic skin that may be worn for health monitoring. This ultra-thin e-skin patch can be affixed to the wearer's chest and a small wireless transmitter using a water spray and worn for up to one week. It is sensitive enough to detect and record electrical signals, such as heartbeats and muscle movements, and send them to the cloud so that healthcare providers may remotely monitor the user's vitals. This advanced wearable is critical in monitoring chronic conditions such as heart failure and diabetes.

Health monitoring:  People use wearable technology to monitor and receive alerts for their heart rate and blood pressure, keep track of their caloric intake, and manage their workout regimens. The COVID-19 pandemic increased the usage of wearable technology as consumers became more conscious of personal cleanliness and made efforts to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. For instance, Apple upgraded its Cardiogram app by offering a new sleeping beats-per-minute feature that tracks heart rate changes in COVID-19 patients.

Entertainment and gaming: The gaming and entertainment sectors first adopted VR headsets, smart glasses, and controllers. Popular VR head-mounted displays, such as Oculus Quest, Meta Quest, and Sony PlayStation VR, are used for various forms of entertainment, including gaming, movie watching, and virtual travel.

Fashionable and stylish apparel: In recent years, smart clothing or intelligent fashion has gained widespread favor. Smart jackets, such as Levi's jackets, created using Google's Project Jacquard technology, in which the threads are comprised of electrical fibers, allow the wearer to accept calls, play music, or shoot photos directly from the sleeves. Notable examples of wearable technology include smartwatches, wristbands, smart shoes, and smart jewelry.

Military: These wearables include vitals-tracking technology, virtual reality (VR)-based simulation exercises, and sustainability technology, such as boot inserts that estimate how effectively soldiers are holding their equipment weight and how terrain conditions affect their performance.

Fitness and athletics: Wearable athletic devices are embedded into the fabric of athletic garments or sports equipment, such as bats and balls, for sports. The GPS and Bluetooth-enabled devices provide data in real-time to coaches for examination on connected electronic devices such as computers. In addition to wearable athletic equipment, familiar wearable technology such as Fitbit, Apple Watch, Garmin, Samsung Galaxy Watch, and Polar is widely used to measure a player's health and performance metrics in various areas.