Since Google Glass\'s 2013 appearance, technology observers have announced that wearable devices are the next big event.
The rapid growth in sales of fitness bands and smartwatches reinforces this belief.
But to reach its potential, wearable technology must have more benefits than tracking exercise or getting notifications on the watch.
QuickTake an application that is loosely defined as a microcomputer worn somewhere on the body, wearable technology still needs its graphical user interface, browser, broadband, VisiCalc, and Google to make it a necessary and easy-to-use enabling technology and unique advantage.
Early adopters of Apple\'s headlines
After all, grabbing a smartwatch is most often used to inform time and get notifications ---
Not the world.
Change the app.
\"Our location on wearables is about where we were on the Internet in 1993,\" Amanda Parks said . \" Director of Technology and Research at manufacturing in New York, visiting scientist at MIT\'s Media Lab.
See wearable development as generation after generation.
Today\'s first generation, with fitness trackers as an example, but includes smartwatches that are actually used as accessories or patches.
They just do things, from athletes to anxious parents, and they tend to target niche markets.
With the plunge in Fitbit\'s stock price, the basic fitness tracker is now easily knocked down --
Commodities, but first
The new generation of wearable devices includes underutilized markets.
For example, you can now let Owlet smart socks monitor the baby\'s heartbeat and breathing, instead of constantly checking the newborn you sleep.
The Temtraq thermometer patch keeps a record of body temperature, allowing parents to check their children with fever using their smartphones. (
Although the temtraq market 24-
Give the parents an hour patch and it works for adults as well. )Second-
The new generation of wearable devices integrates sensors and processing technology into clothing, making the technology less compelling and more versatile.
Clothes can collect new data as well as respond to new data.
At the moment, however, the wearable chips and circuits are still too big, too delicate, too difficult to assemble to make the second
Especially when you add the idea that clothes are durable, washable and fairly cheap to the consumer\'s expectations.
\"Fashion factories and technology factories are very different businesses,\" notes Lisa Jinde, founder of the third wave of fashion at New York fashion and technology consulting.
I don\'t know how to make beautiful clothes.
So we\'re still in the superhero phase of phase two.
Technology.
If you\'re a rich Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne-
Or an artist or a designer. time show --
You can buy a custom outfit to do something great, like protecting your personal space with an external skeleton that can cope with aggression.
However, no matter how impressive, the prototype is not a commercial product.
\"So many companies are launching prototypes and calling them products, which is damaging the industry as a whole,\" Kindred took Google\'s Project Jacquard as an example . \".
Or bring a smart sports bra.
Design company Chromat presented one at New York Fashion Week in last September.
It uses Intel\'s wearable device.
Oriented to Madame Curie chip for sensing and regulating body temperature and sweat, open and close the vents to cool or warm the wearer.
This smart bra attracts a lot of people\'s attention, but you can\'t actually buy it ---
Lost information in the hype.
Wearable devices have Moore\'s law, because every generation of chips is getting smaller and cheaper, but it is developing second.
Other basic components are still needed for the generation version, such as easy-to-install connectors and better battery solutions.
Smart watches have promoted development, but the quality of components is still a problem.
\"If you haven\'t gone deep into the world of wearable development,\" says Parkes, \"you don\'t understand why it\'s necessary to do so.
Even a second promising idea.
A generation of wearable devices facing a chickenand-
The problem with eggs makes it difficult to go beyond the proof of concept.
Think about the leggings that researchers at King\'s College London have recently developed to measure muscle fatigue for runners.
Leggings have sensors on fixed-point embroidery and do not require runners to know anything about the device.
Collect data in real time
Smart leggings can improve training and reduce damage, not in the lab.
But they are still a research prototype that is only tested on two people.
There are many different proportions of runners.
Just because athletes wear the same size doesn\'t mean the sensors will hit them in the same place.
Assuming these smart outfits can be produced on a large scale, will they really work in this area?
How will they stick to it?
Will people want it?
If you don\'t know, how can you justify investing in new manufacturing processes to make them?
The second question is
A generation of wearable devices needs trialand-
Error testing to see if they will work in their daily lives.
This means that a large number of consumers use them in a real environment.
World conditions.
This, in turn, requires mass manufacturing of brand new products. -
An expensive investment that, over time, needs to be learned in itself.
If you\'re not sure this new idea will pop up, why do you do it? The chicken-and-
The Egg question explains why the prototype that attracts attention does not appear in the store.
Like leggings, unlike today\'s fitness tracker, advanced wearables offer the possibility to gather new information about things we don\'t know yet.
Parkes says their huge potential is \"long term and continuous data collection and mapping.
What you want to do is perceive change.
\"This brings us to the possible third generation, where wearables collect new data gracefully and unobtrusively, and then analyze and integrate with other information to provide new
Imagine applying this idea behind temtraq-
Record body temperature continuously--
Healthy people in daily life.
The normal temperature between people is different, but how much?
How do they fluctuate over time? By activity?
Surroundings?
Subjective impression? (
Is it just me or is it hot here? )
How does temperature affect sleep?
Can you predict the onset of the disease by a subtle peak?
Once we have the ability to collect this data, the challenge we face is to figure out what it means.
Private everywhere, third
The new generation of wearable technology allows us to have a deeper understanding of our body and environment.
\"We don\'t yet know how it\'s going to change culture and behavior, but it has that potential because it\'s linked to the ability of most people,\" Parkes said . \".
However, wearable devices need to be cheap, reliable, comfortable, easy to understand and good before we get there
Find enough for a large number of ordinary people to buy them.
Contact the author of this story: The Virginia poet of vpostrel @ bloomberg.
NetTo contacted Jonathan Landman in charge of the story: jlandman4 @ bloomberg.