Fitness plays an integral role in our everyday lives today. With practising workouts and maintaining overall health gaining exceptional momentum (especially after the COVID-19 pandemic), the world is in the midst of a wearable technology revolution. According to an International Data Corporation (IDC) report, the wearable device segment comprising smartwatches, wrist bands and earwears recorded 75 million shipment units in the first nine months of 2022. IDC data further states that smartwatches emerged as the fastest-growing segment among these wearable devices, with 178.8% shipments year-over-year in quarter three to over 12 million units. Even the earwear category recorded a healthy 33.6% growth.
In an exclusive interaction with OnlyMyHealth editorial team, Jitendra Chouksey, Co-founder & CEO of Fittr, shared five upcoming wearable trends to enhance health and fitness goals. Here are his insights:
Such growth prospects indicate that people are moving towards wearable technology, making their lives seamless and effortless. Consequently, wearables are becoming a mainstream technology and have a much more significant impact on our lives. As we advance through time, wearable technology offers unparalleled benefits like tracking our daily activity and calories burned, measuring BP, increasing productivity, enhancing speed, and facilitating better work-life balance. With these extraordinary benefits in place, the wearable technology sector expects the below-listed trends to take shape mentioned below.
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1. Smartwatches
Unlike standard watches, smartwatches are inbuilt with additional features like tracking fitness data, i.e., daily steps taken, burned calories, sending & receiving notifications, making phone calls instantly, playing music, etc. Often referred to as an extension of our smartphone, smartwatches count the number of steps taken throughout the day. Its heart rate monitoring tool tracks the user’s heartbeat rate during exercise. Additionally, smartwatches provide other fitness and health tools like monitoring blood pressure, sleep, ECG, and many more.
2. Smart patches
It is a thin and flexible wearable device that can be attached to the skin to monitor multiple health parameters. Smart patches have sensors that monitor physiological parameters like blood oxygen levels, heart rate, body temperature, etc. The sensors used in smart patches can effectively detect changes in the physiological parameters and alert in case anything abnormal happens inside the body. Besides monitoring health parameters, smart patches also track our daily activity levels and health status through an app installed on a smartphone or computer.
3. Smart rings
Has anyone thought a finger ring could give them a critical notification or help them unlock their car? The idea of incorporating technology in a finger ring previously seemed unrealistic. But today, it is a reality. By wearing smart rings, one can keep track of their health, measure their heart rate, monitor their sleep patterns, and conduct payments. They can also set alarms and receive instant call/message notifications through smart rings.
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4. Smart clothing
Also known as connected clothing, smart clothing is a high-tech garment with inbuilt modern technology that add functionality beyond traditional use. The smart garment has sensors woven into the fabric and sends data to an application on a connected device. Interestingly, smart clothing provides valuable health information by helping users monitor health & fitness, track their heart rate, skin temperature, and respiration, monitor their emotions, order a coffee and even unlock doors. Hence, the possibilities of smart garments are endless.
5. Smart implantables
Today, smart implantables are devices that can be implanted into our body to interact with our body’s tissue and organs to monitor, diagnose, or treat multiple medical conditions. Smart implantables are active and passive, comprising biocompatible materials (like titanium, stainless steel, or polymers). While active smart implantables need battery power to function, passive smart implantables don’t have electronics and function depending on our body’s energy.
With these smart devices in place, wearable technology is constantly evolving and becoming more sophisticated and powerful. From smartwatches, smart rings, smart implantables, and smart clothing to smart patches, these wearable technology trends make our life easier by tracking our health status while allowing us to enjoy the fun of these incredible devices.
