Wearable Technology – Fashion or Function

Technology and software have been entering our lives in the most intimate ways, and the Wearable Technology trend appears to be the next big step towards it.

What is wearable technology?

Wearable technology, as the name suggests is that breed of consumer technological devices that can be comfortably worn on the body. They could be designed to fit the consumer as a glove, a vest, a watch or a bracelet.

Wearables  can perform most of the computing tasks carried out in a smart  Phone or a tablet, and in most cases wearables can even outperform them. These tiny devices provide great additional features as add-ons to the smart – phone devices they are connected to, and at the same time look trendy.

Why use Wearables?

Apart from the convenience of being able to access things on the go, these tiny devices help you do more things in less time. They are complete with smart sensors and Bluetooth technology which is used to connect to the smart phones or the parent devices.

They provide the consumer with a wide range of functionalities by gathering information and data about the world around us, including our own bodies. That’s right, the wearable devices more often than not are used to track the body’s activities such as sleep patterns, Heart Rate, number of steps taken, etc.

Wearables can be used for a variety of purposes, some of which are:

• Fitness Tracker: Gone are the days of chest straps, that were used to monitor heart rate. With the advent of fitness tracker bracelets, one can easily monitor his or her heart rate by just glancing at their bracelets or phone screens. Apart from heart rate, fitness tracker bracelets also today provide sleep monitoring functions and can even calculate the number of steps one has taken throughout the day.

• Navigation: They provide GPS tracking which is a very convenient option for fitness freaks who love to cycle/jog around in the wild. One can explore along, without having to fetch for their phones every now and then for navigation.

• Media tools: Smart watches provide capabilities such as message notifications, calendar synchronization etc. Most of the smart watches are enabled with touch screens that allow you to access functions such as compass, playing audio tracks, calculator and much more.

• Communication: Smart watches allow you to do much more than just reading the time. One can send or receive messages and even place calls using it.

• Ultimate connectivity: With wearable tech, your loved ones are just a screen tap away, no more fetching for your phones from your bags and hence provides for safety as well. For those always on the road, it’s like having a constant companion.

Ultimately the purpose of wearable technology is to create constant, convenient, seamless, portable, and mostly hands-free access to electronics and computers. The implications and uses of wearable technology are far reaching and can influence the fields of health and medicine, fitness, aging, disabilities, education, transportation, enterprise, finance, gaming and music.

Fashion vs. Function

The advent of wearable tech has led to the questionable convergence between stylistic appeal and functional technology. It is imperative to identify what is more important and whether any compromises can be made in either.

Does fashion forwardness cause any hindrances in the device’s technical capabilities? Are tech companies today making money off the aesthetic value of their devices and are easily compromising on the functionality and usage aspects? According to the going trend, fitness concerned consumers feel external appearances of the devices they use is inevitably important. But as more study has been done in this area, the demand for creating devices that look good on the consumer’s hands, would prove to be exceptionally difficult to balance with adding more new functionalities to the wearable devices.

Ultimately, going by the current realties of the market, one can easily understand that products that will sustain in the long run will specifically choose one path or the other: basic – functionality devices that look sleek and stylish but cannot be regarded as uniquely fashionable OR high function devices, produced in small quantities with many varieties, which offer only modest looks.

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