The different types of wearable technology, often known as wearables, refer to intelligent electronic devices that can be incorporated into clothing or worn as implants or accessories on the body.
Smartwatches, fitness trackers, bright jewelry, smart clothes, implantable gadgets, and head-mounted displays are examples of standard wearable devices.
Furthermore, wearable devices, sometimes known as wearables, have gained a steady following among customers over the past ten years.
Smartwatches like the Apple Watch are probably the most well-known wearables, but there have been and continue to be numerous more types of wearables.
Additionally, head-mounted displays (HMDs), clothing, and jewelry are all examples of modern wearable technology on the market.
Because they are in contact with the user’s body, these devices can do many fundamental computing operations, similar to laptops and smartphones, and they may also offer unique health-tracking services (such as calorie tracking and sleep monitoring).
Wearable devices may become increasingly common in the workplace shortly, and businesses should explore how they can use these technologies to create a more productive and connected workplace.
Well some of the different types of wearable technology are;
1. Smart Watch
Smart Watches are probably the most well-known and widely utilized smart wearables in the office today.
When a smartwatch is connected to a smartphone, the wearer may read and send new messages from their watch without holding and viewing their phone.
Beginning with the Series 4 product line, Apple’s Apple Watch allows users to acquire an ECG heart reading without using other equipment.
At the same time, the Matrix PowerWatch Series 2 can charge using solar power and body heat instead of electricity.
2. Hearable
Hearables are also one of the most used types of wearable technology. They are comparable to headphones because they allow you to hear what’s happening around you.
In addition, they accept voice input and return the output in audio format to the user’s ear upon request. It’s a microcomputer in your ear.
Additionally, Earphones, earbuds, and headsets are the three types of hearables. These notions are frequently misunderstood and sometimes referred to as headsets.
Additionally, earphones (also known as in-ear headphones or in-ear) are worn in the ear canal. They usually have ear cushions, which vary in size.
Earbuds are held outside the ear canal to hear ambient noise. Meanwhile, they typically come in one size and are less expensive than earphones.
Speakers or speakers worn outside the ear/ears are known as headsets.
They have a microphone on them. Furthermore, because wearables have a narrower margin of error than wearables linked to the body, they are more successful in estimating body temperature or heart rate.
3. Fitness Tracker
The next generation of wearable technology examples is the modern successor to pedometers and fitness trackers.
Steps taken, heart rate, calories burnt, and other fitness indicators are all tracked.
Fitness-oriented products (such as FitBit’s range of fitness trackers) now integrate smartwatch features, including phone notification alerts and smartwatches containing a variety of fitness tracking options and capabilities.
On the other hand, fitness trackers are less expensive since they have fewer features and an emphasis on functionality rather than aesthetics.
4. Smart Shoe
Smart Shoes are also one of the fast-rising different types of wearable technology.
Distance, steps, stride rate and length, foot landing, time on the ground, and other data are collected by smart shoes.
Additionally, most of this information cannot be gathered with wrist-worn trackers.
In addition, this segment is still in its early stages of development, but it is beginning to emerge as a submarket.
5. Smart Clothing
Smart clothing can provide deeper insights than other instances of modern wearable technology since it makes contact with a more considerable portion of the body, allowing enhanced tracking for medical care and lifestyle betterment.
Additionally, Samsung undertakes substantial research in this area and has filed several exciting patents.
However, if these patents become commercially viable, Samsung might sell smart shirts that diagnose respiratory problems and smart shoes that track running quickly.
Furthermore, consumers can buy Siren Socks (smart socks that detect developing foot ulcers).
Wearable X Nadi X smart pants (yoga pants that vibrate to improve form during yoga exercises), Naviano smart swimsuits (smart swimsuits that provide alerts when the user should apply sunscreen), and other smart clothing.
In addition, smart clothing is also being used by businesses to increase brand loyalty.
Tommy Hilfiger experimented with putting location-tracking features to its Tommy Jeans Xplore clothing line in a unique example of wearable technology.
Additionally, this allowed the apparel to detect how often the buyer wore it, allowing Tommy Hilfiger to reward frequent wearers with additional Tommy Hilfiger items.
6. Smart Glass
Next on our list of different types of wearable Technology is Smart Glasses.
Smart glasses are computer spectacles that record what the wearer sees and send the data to a cloud storage service. AR glasses, on the other hand, augment what the user sees.
Furthermore, AR glasses are expected to become a critical submarket, particularly in the United States and the Asia Pacific, particularly Japan.
Google Glass was the first AR glass, and it was announced in 2012.
However, it did not become a mass product due to its high cost and market immaturity. In 2013, the mixed reality Hololens set the pace.
The full 90-degree Meta 2 was made available for pre-order in March 2016.
Snapchat debuted trendy Spectacles and heavily advertised them a few months later, in November 2016.
7. Wearable Camera
Wearable cameras capture footage from a first-person viewpoint. They are usually clipped to clothes like a shirt, hat, or helmet.
Furthermore, wearable cameras capture events such as daily life, parties, performances, sports, and other activities.
Additionally, some wearable cameras, such as the GoPro, can produce professional video in 4K resolution.
Sports and adventure activities are the most common subjects for such cameras.
8. Implantable
Implantables are also one of the different wearable TechnologyTechnology you must know.
Implantables communicate with the user’s body rather than the skin from the inside.
For example, the now-defunct firm Proteus manufactured sensor-containing pills that could monitor blood pressure and other health metrics; after swallowing the drugs, the user could wear an external device to monitor the data gathered from within the body readily.
Additionally, smart tattoos may be accessible shortly for patients who desire a simple method to remember to keep their monitoring equipment with them at all times.
9. Body Sensor
Body sensors can be implanted or placed on the surface of the skin.
They move in tandem with the skin, collecting and transmitting data to computers or cellphones that are attached to them.
Additionally, body sensors are primarily used in medical and healthcare.
Electrocardiogram (ECG) and electroencephalogram (EEG) readings are possible with body sensors and checking when a patient took his sensor-enabled pill.
In addition, body sensors monitor physical activity and sleep patterns.
10. Head-Mounted Display
Head-mounted displays are also widely used in different types of wearable technology.
HMDs are more extensive than most wearable computer devices, as their name implies.
Furthermore, they attach to the user’s head and provide a display in the user’s field of vision, allowing them to use the device without looking down at a phone or smartwatch display.
Additionally, HMDs can give users various experiences: they can serve as monitors, deliver information superimposed on reality via augmented reality (AR), or entirely immerse the user in a virtual reality (VR) environment.
First, there are helpful HMD devices that are not AR or VR HMDs. Vufine, for example, makes smart glasses that allow users to monitor the video output of devices such as drones in real time.
Additionally, AR HMDs enable users to simultaneously engage with digital information and the real-world environment around them.
11. Smart Jewelry
The logical consequence of continuing research into incorporating health-tracking capabilities into compact smart wearables is smart jewelry.
The smart ring may be the most popular type of smart jewelry right now.
However, smart rings, such as those made by Oura, are worn on finger-like regular rings while collecting health-tracking data that the user can check later on a smartphone.
Furthermore, smart jewelry comes in various shapes and sizes, from bangles to bracelets, designed by well-known fashion houses.
Additionally, the Joule, a smart health-tracking device that doubles as an earring backing, will increase the variety of potential smart jewelry shortly; Joule effectively allows any earring to join the list of wearable computing devices.
12. Location Tracker
Location Tracker is also one of the different types of wearable technology available right now.
Whereabouts trackers, often GPS trackers, send the wearer’s location to the linked device.
Kids’ GPS trackers are getting increasingly popular. They are compact, but other standard devices, such as fitness trackers, are excessively big.
Parents can use such gadgets to receive and make calls, play games, and even hear what is going on around their children.
Furthermore, reminders and activities can also be put up by parents. The child may be rewarded for completing them.
However, it’s impossible to predict how this device category will evolve. On the one hand, the manufacturers will differentiate the products to increase income.
On the other hand, fitness trackers are ubiquitous and include nearly all of the same capabilities, if not all of them.
13. Exoskeleton
Exoskeletons, also known as exosuits, use a combination of electric motors, pneumatics, levers, hydraulics, and haptics to power them.
As a result, limbs have more strength and endurance when moving. Furthermore, Active and passive exoskeletons are the two primary types of exoskeletons.
Additionally, actuators in active exoskeletons amplify the user’s movements.
These kinds of devices are becoming more common. They can be used in medical, military, and civilian settings.
Furthermore, paralyzed patients can walk with the assistance of skeletons. Phoenix, a robotic exoskeleton, is one such example.
The suit uses small motors attached to ordinary orthotics to restore the wearer’s knees and hips.
Pushing the buttons allows the wearer to control the movement of each leg and walk.
Furthermore, Exosuits can also make manual tasks easier for workers. Exoskeletons are making dangerous occupations, such as firefighting, considerably safer.
Actuators, batteries, and electronics are not used in passive exoskeletons. These exoskeletons are mainly employed for military objectives.
These machines can, for example, absorb shock and vibrations for military troops or immediately transfer some of the weight of a soldier’s rucksack to the ground.
14. Gesture Control Wearable
Gesture control wearables are last on our list of the different types of wearable technology.
A wearable gesture control gadget is a gadget that recognizes human body gestures and transfers data to a computer or other device, allowing for hands-free operation.
The absence of intermediate devices between the system and the user is a “natural user interface” in such interface setups.
In conclusion, companies will need to discover ways to seamlessly incorporate these devices into their networks as workers bring more wearable gadgets into the office while ensuring that these new technologies do not hinder worker productivity.
