Anywhere you want to wear them. While this sounds like an exaggeration, with sensors embedded in clothing and other form factors besides wrist-worn devices, it is essentially true.
Image source: Rise of Wearables and future of Wearable technology
INVIZA, a company that designs and builds ‘FashTech,’ announced that it is taking pre-order sales for INVIZA®SOLE 1.0 smart insoles with its associated INVIZA®LIFE 1.0 smart general wellness mobile app for smartphones. The smart, self-charging, concealed insoles have an optical health sensor suite. The highly accurate sensors calculate steps, calories and the user’s vital signs.
A recent IDC report about wearable devices, observed, “Hearables were the largest category of devices with 64.2% share of shipments, followed by watches with 24.1% share.” The researchers say that for an ear-worn device to be considered a hearable, it must offer functionality beyond audio, like a smart assistant, health and fitness tracking or audio experience enhancement. New form factors and reduced cost for new features, including automatic noise cancelling and voice assistant capability are attributed to the growth.
In addition to printing sensors on clothing, researchers have recently been able to reduce the printing temperature using a layer made of polyvinyl alcohol paste and calcium carbonate. The reduced temperature allowed sensors temporarily tattooed onto a human subject to measure temperature, humidity, blood oxygen levels and heart rhythms. Instead of at the wrist, the sensors were on the hand.
While not new and not a new wearable location but not frequently mentioned as a wearable, ankle monitor bracelets used by law enforcement, like the Scram GPS® bracelet from SCRAM Systems, have an improved strap with tamper technology to virtually eliminate false alerts and provide nearly instant notifications. With the monitoring system, the 1,440 location points a client generates per day become useful information for police to track the wearer. The impact could mean fewer people being sent to prison and fewer people getting off the radar.
