If you have ever seen a James Bond film or any other espionage movie, certainly the technology used in accessories to wear have become familiar to you; such devices might seem ordinary but they are not: watches that serve for radio communications or gloves to control other devices through sensors. It is even very likely that you have wished something like that to exist so you could make easier quotidian tasks in your daily life.

Okay, the good news is that this kind of technology has been a reality since some decades ago, and during the last years its development has increased with a remarkable speed, we are talking bout the wearable technology. From objects like watches or patches for health or athletic performance monitoring, to garments with solar panels that let you recharge your cell phone without needing a plug, wearable technology has arrived and is in constant evolution, with the main objective of improving the quality of people’s life. But you might be asking yourself what this technology we are talking about consists of.

Making the basis: wearables’ first manifestations

Contrary to what we might think, wearable technology has its beginnings in the XVII century, when an abacus ring was created in China during the first years of Qing’s dynasty (1644-1911). This small abacus measured 1.2 cm long and 0.7 cm wide, contained 1 mm beads, which allowed carrying it comfortably in the bearer’s finger. It helped traders to realise quick mathematical operations aided by a pin or needle used to move the tiny beads.

An example closer to our age and the concept we have of modern technology may be is the device created by Claude Shannon and Edward Thorp in 1961: a shoe that had a computer of the size of a pack of cigarettes, which, hidden in the footwear, helped to increase good decisions 44% during roulettes games at casinos. This invention is considered as the first wearable computer of history.

After such invention, wearable technology has flourished in many branches of science, it appears in devices as diverse as watched, glasses, clothes and a huuuge etcetera, with uses in lots of areas, like health, leisure and fashion.

Computing apparels: the future of innovation

The essential objective of wearable technology is creating a constant connection between the user and the device, either conscious or unconsciously, by being worn on the body. Even when there are invasive versions of this technology, like the beneath-skin inserted sensors, non-invasive versions that can be worn and taken away at will are the users’ preferred and which boom is at the height of its development. This sort of devices can carry out the same tasks as a more common mobile device, like smart phones; but, at the same time, it is capable of realising tasks and recollecting data that the others cannot. Wearable technology must always function in the bottom, becoming like this a true extension of the user’s mind and body.

Nowadays there are many novel manifestations within wearable technologies sphere, one of them is Google’s contact lens, jointly developed with the enterprise Verily and Alcon division of Novartis. This smart contact lens

would allow to monitor continuously glucose states in diabetic patients, its sensors measure blood glucose levels through ocular fluid and, with a wireless aerial smaller than a human hair, send the recollected information each second to a mobile device, which stores all the data and sends an alert message to the patient when his levels decrease or increase from what is normal, also notifies when he should go to the doctor. It is expected to begin with the first tests on patients this year.

For her part, Dutch fashion designer Pauline Van Dongen is one of the current pioneers in the creation and development of technological garments. Nowadays one of the projects she is working is the design of a windcheater with solar panels that allow to plug in your cell phone and recharge it in one or two hours (depending upon the climatic conditions the user finds himself).

In a turn within clothes industry, Athos enterprise has created a sport outfit able to recollect information about the exercise realised, muscles groups used and cardiac frequency of the user, through sensors similar to those utilised for electromyographies (a medical exam that, in a non-invasive manner, measures the electrical activity between muscles and nerves). Muscles activity is gathered and sent immediately to the mobile device via wireless personal area network (with help of Bluetooth), in order to analyse and correct possible errors of posture and breathing occurred during exercise.

Some doubts and problems

Despite wearable technology sounds wonderful and seems to arrive just like that, without further ado, to facilitate people’s lives, there are some doubts and problems we must take into account. One concern that shines out not only in this one but in diverse implementation areas of computing when it comes to common life issues, is safety. Although there are reluctant people before the fact of finding ourselves connected and collecting personal information, or even the extinction of privacy, given the continuous information monitoring, which they fear that may take us to an Orwellian future, in the finest style of the dystopian novel 1984.

Currently, technology itself also presents a problem with users, even though in the past years has raised the amount of people who acquire this kind of products, thanks to the creation of devices like the Fitbit and the Apple Watch, a study carried out by Endeavour Partners shows that a third of users that have a wearable device give up using it during the first three months after the purchase. This tells us that we must find the way to help users to permanently integrate the use of devices into their daily life.

The outlook of people’s lives and computers coexisting in symbiotic relationship seems closer and closer and it is very likely that wearables be the ones which make come true that utopic reality, especially because this kind of developments is catalogued within the industries of the future, technologies that are in full development and count on a big support by important investors and enterprises which are leaders in the field. In short, doubtlessly, wearable technology is barely one of the numerous doors that innovation opens to us and we shall wait to see how it becomes part of our daily life and interacts with the other developments that scientific-technological basic and applied researches will bring to us.

Written by Doris Salazar (Communication and Diffusion, PIT-UAS), Translated by Belem Ruiz (Edition and Communication, PIT-UAS).