Wearable Technology

Wearable technology is the category of electronic digital devices (or "wearables") which are attached to or on the user's body. This includes the popular offerings of smart watches and "True wireless" ear buds (sometimes called "hearables").^[1] Since the user is wearing such devices, they are designed to be lightweight and unobtrusive; they are generally not wanted to interfere in daily activities. Most wearables will connect to the user's smartphone, so that they can either be controlled by the phone, or send information to the phone, such as health and fitness data.

Benefits[edit]

Hearables, which are likely the most popular kind of wearable today, offer the user flexibility. Specifically when physically active, true wireless earbuds (such as Apple's AirPods) can be useful, since there is no wire to deal with. They are compact and can in many cases still offer good sound quality. The other popular option of smart watches and other fitness trackers offer convenience to those who want to casually monitor their fitness activities, sleep, and other such matters. Some smart watches can also notify the user of new messages on their phone, support hands-free calling, adjust media controls on the phone, and more.

Some smart watches are also capable of connecting to a cellular network, although this reduces battery life. Some are also capable of connecting to WiFi networks directly. However, most will simply create a "personal area network" (PAN) using Bluetooth, and communicate everything with or through the phone.

Issues and concerns[edit]

Since wearables are designed to be small, they typically cannot offer much battery capacity. This means that they must use as little power as possible, and also need to be recharged frequently. Many wearables will require recharging on a daily basis. Even then, they can sometimes be considered "clunky." Additionally, the biometrics they gather can be inaccurate in many cases, offering more of a "best guess" than an accurate reading.^[2]

Privacy is also a concern, since most of the data health trackers gather is exported to the vendor's cloud. From there, it is sometimes unclear how that data is used. While it may be kept private, this kind of data can be particularly valuable to certain entities, such as insurance companies.^[3][4] Even if it is not being deliberately shared or sold, the data security practices of that company are often not disclosed. In addition to heath information, this kind of wearable typically knows the user's geolocation, which can also be problematic. Furthermore, the precise movement information a smart watch gathers also enables it to determine exactly what the user's hand is doing. For example, when the user types in a password, their smartwach can guess with surprising accuracy what was just typed. This is even more the case when a single hand is used for something like an ATM PIN or a door access code.^[5][6]

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