One of the new emerging technologies I've been thinking about, and it's potential impacts, is wearable technology - glasses, watches/monitors, ear, and yes, in the not too distant future, implants.
There are some excellent use cases for the wearable technology that is emerging now from Apple, Google, and many others. It's not just gee-whiz gadgetry and we should expect it to take hold.
Some applications include:
- Personal fitness. Monitor, record, compare vs. goals, as well as alert the wearer to dangerous conditions (eg heart rate, body temperature, blood pressure). I can see it accompanied by a fitness application partially on the device, the remainder on the PC where the data/goals are stored, or better yet, a cloud-based application. There are wearable fitness devices today. That's not what's new. What is new is combining it with the rest of your mobile communications device that you would also be carrying.
- Health Care. Going beyond reading pulse, and temperature, some of these devices will be made to do certain kinds of blood testing and recording. Health care is seen as perhaps the highest area of impact of wearable technology.
o
Some examples include diabetics or patients in
other danger of getting into conditions where they can't help themselves.
For a severe diabetic, I can see automatic and frequent blood readings being
taken. The user can be alerted in a more timely way to take action, or,
even better, when combined with an insulin pump, some automatic action can be
taken. Automatic storage and
transmission of the readings is another big plus.
o
The devices could contain or access mobile
GPS/location services. What better way to make an automatic notification
to 911 or other emergency services should a patient become incapacitated due to
a diabetic, heart, stroke or other episode they are high risk for, or even
injured in an accident?
o Physicians are likely to use a wearable glasses type device to visually collaborate with others in diagnosis and in surgery.
o General collection of and comparison of population health care data and statistics can have many uses in the healthcare industry - insurers, providers, and patients.
- Portable
Smartphone Watch. Yes the Dick
Tracey watch is finally here.
- How many of us are constantly losing, forgetting to carry, or having your phone stolen? I expect that the "watch phone" will have some of the basic pulse and body temperature sensors in it to enable some of the fitness or health applications above. On the downside, taking pictures or video is more problematic than the handheld smartphone. Despite that, a voice controlled device with a speaker or Bluetooth headset can be a convenience especially when combined with other sensors. Adding sensors is rumored to be the direction Apple iWatch is taking; as a companion to the iPhone. Several other vendors (Sony, Moto, Samsung, to name a few) are in the race in a similar way. If that's the case, so much for reducing our device overload or addressing the forgotten phone etc issues. Despite that, they still have real use and will likely converge into some single device models.
- Glasses/Monitor form factor of a phone. I'm not much of a fan of Google Glass - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass - yet and have some concerns about it's practicality but nonetheless it's a force to be dealt with. Refer to the wiki link for more. My main concerns that will have to be addressed for such devices to become mainstream include privacy (due to the stealth camera/video "invasion" of privacy) and most of all safety due to distraction and presence of a "screen" in front of you. It can clearly compound the text and drive issue we have today unless intelligence is added to disable certain applications on the "screen" while in motion. Devices like Google Glass with it's voice activation/control, "screen" you can see without looking at your wrist, and camera/video ability take the Dick Tracy watch to the next level but the use cases appear to be somewhat limited. Specialized uses where hands free and transmission of pictures or video from the viewpoint of the person make sense - for example, healthcare, emergency responders, and yes "surveillance". For the average person it's not clear that we'd "need" such a device although one example I like is the improved GPS/map display while driving vs. looking down at the GPS display in the car or on your phone. For me, I'd need more than that to add that device to my already crowded device landscape.
- For the Ears - It's not just headphones anymore. Take a look at this link and you'll see advances in audio related devices. I particularly like the "Intelligent Headset" meant to use GPS, Compass, Gyrometer which in addition to gaming can help guide a user through their surroundings. The "Dash" combines some fitness related sensors.
- Implanted Devices. Admittedly, this may be further out there, and wouldn't be for normal communication purposes, but somehow you can bet it will happen. Health care applications appear to be an obvious use area. Specialized implanted devices can address more sensors and measurement and relay them to your provider for analysis and alerting. Implanting criminal offenders for constant monitoring, WITH backend data analysis/capture to DO something with the tracking when "out of bounds" or to verify whereabouts at a certain time is something I'd like to see. Will there come a day where all/most children will be implanted at least optionally? What better way to locate missing persons some day, if it can ever can pass the public fear of "big brother" and technical hurdles such as hidden/inaccessible power sourcing.
Other Implications Of Wearable Technology
- BYOD and UCC - Wearable technology that offers communication capability (voice, video, collaboration apps) must find its way into the BYOD and Unified Communications fray. UCC vendors will need to address supporting these types of endpoints especially if/when they become standalone devices rather than smartphone companion devices. Consumers will want to use these devices for work communications and interactions making how to support BYOD an issue if/when decoupled from the smartphone. BYOD/UCC support on smartphones isn't yet where it needs to be but that's a subject for another post.
- Developer Community - a limited number of platforms have to emerge as standard, avoiding fragmentation, so that application developers can easily support and maintain applications that will apply to a large percent of the devices. Android Wear and Apple iOS for wearables would appear to be the likely winners, again.
- Connection to the Internet Of Things movement. Either through the smartphone, or directly, wearable technology will be an interface point where we watch and control our "things".
Comments?
I'd
love to hear your thoughts, observations, concerns or predictions about the
penetration of wearable technologies.
Michael Killian
