Smart Wearables to be more Wearable or another look at Wearable Innovation #HealthIT

Global wearables market is projected to double by X, projected to grow by Y% in the current quarter/year are the usual headlines when someone writes about where the wearable market is going, and i agree, there is so much more room for growth that majority of wearables that are available today are not reaching out to quite a few sections of the market's proverbial pie.

This article is about a view on how will the wearable market look like. A market that will suit any person's needs, who doesn't have a chronic disease and needs a wearable to be able to monitor/control the disease, but someone who wants the help of technology to be able to get more insights into his projected health based on what now have become common wearable KPIs like Steps Count, Heart Rate, Sleep tracking, SpO2, Stress Level and if we're lucky in the near future some extras like Temperature, Noise Level, Light, Humidity, Breathing Pattern and others will also become the norm on what is tracked.

In the past couple of weeks I was looking for a smart wearable for my mum - she is at that age when having the additional analytics will point out the need to be more active. In my search quest I saw that majority of solutions are smart watches, but if you are someone who looks at their watch as a jewelry with function, my mum absolutely loves her Tissot watch, the available options unfortunately aren't great to replace the current watch. So I ended up looking for alternatives. And in this thought process i found myself thinking of what other wearables there could be, and the coolest idea i discovered that already one could buy as a product (although only in US and works only with iOS for now) is the wearable ring! I am surprised there aren't many other options and i seriously think if anyone will spin this off and market as a smart wearable wedding ring it will be an awesome niche to be in.

In my google quest I've read quite a few articles like http://uk.businessinsider.com/best-smart-jewelry/#the-best-piece-of-smart-jewelry-overall-1 and https://www.wareable.com/fashion/semi-precious-the-best-smart-jewelry-582 which gives a good summary of what options are there regarding jewelry wearables and gave me some more alternatives.

Non-Chronic Disease Wearables, even though these can be used for specific monitoring like atrial fibrillation, they are designed first as lifestyle monitoring and don't have the disease monitoring at the core - I will call them Lifestyle Wearables. Below is my view on different Lifestyle Wearable segments:

Watches- this is the most mature market segment, lots of articles written about this subject, a lot of new devices released and in the pipeline. I think we need more solutions that can look and maintain the jewelry aspect of a watch but has the monitoring brains aspect added behind the look. Like a cool looking watch band with brains for my current dumb watch.

Bracelets - relatively small in terms of available options but reasonably developed. The non sporty looking ones, more on the jewelry side have quite limited options. Where are those jewelry creators to jump on the wearable carriage?

Rings - quite a few people wear rings - i think, in comparison, less people wear watches as people use their phone for time but if they are married most probably will be wearing a ring. The smart ring in my opinion has lots of potential https://mymotiv.com/design

Earrings - Some ideas are popping out: https://www.digitaltrends.com/wearables/ear-o-smart-earrings-track-fitness/, no mass production yet, but fundamentally maybe in the future some can have the extra ability of measuring glucose level.

Smart Piercings - for the more adventurous that have pierced nose, rings in ears, lips, etc why not giving it a wearable twist? Didn't find much on this yet.

Smart Necklace - it does surprise me why there isn't more of this - it can give one the ability to monitor breathing much more accurately as well!

On clothing, while a lot of the effort is still required to have a solution that will be able to survive a wash there are ideas to have clothes designed to have a removable tracker like a lot of the professional sports already have but to be more generic for the more lifestyle wearable market.

Bras- besides the standard KPIs and current ideas - https://mashable.com/2018/01/09/myant-skiin-smart-underwear, it can by diversified and adapted for women - like have some breast feeding feature that can help new mothers see which breast was used last to feed the baby, which breast has more milk etc.

Underwear - it can expand what one can measure like humidity and presence of different bacteria, or try to track how often one has gone to the bathroom. A smart pampers add on - can be a tracker that alerts when it's time to change.

Then the shoes, trousers, coats, hats, gloves - besides the usual KPIs can give they can play within a ecosystem and compare the surrounding temperature and body temperature and suggest if it's optimal or sub-optimal clothing based on metabolism and weather - i know some British people might find this tech useful and educational :)

In conclusion, i think the next big things to come out soon, eat some of the projected market growth and disrupt the more established market of smart watches and bracelets are rings and necklaces. Looking forward trying these out soon!

Exciting times ... Don't you think?