User:Sofiaveneziano/Wearable technology

Form Factors
Wearable technology comes in many different forms. It can be worn on several parts of the body to enhance a users day to day life.

Eye and Head Worn
Some wearable technology are in the form of head adornments. This can consist of smart glasses or head mounted devices. OXSIGHT has established a pair of glasses that can be worn to enhance facial recognition, edge, and text recognition. They are primarily used to help those with visual impairments from severe medical conditions like strokes, glaucoma, and myopic degeneration. Head worn technology can consist of cameras such as GoPro. These cameras are designed to be worn on the head and connected to a smart device. These cameras are used to record activities that otherwise could not be captured.

Wrist Worn
A more popular branch of wearable technology is wrist worn. Smart watches have come into this space within the last 10 years and have swiftly developed into a crucial part of some individuals lives. A smartwatch is a wearable computing device that closely resembles a wristwatch or other time-keeping device. Many of these watches are Bluetooth capable. This allows them to be connected to a users phone or tablet to give them cellular capabilities as well as access to weather, sports, texts, news, and many other apps otherwise only available on a smart phone.

Some of these watches are more advanced and collect health information from the user. For instance, some smartwatches collect data about the wearer's health, monitoring the wearer's heart rate, for instance. Others provide Global Positioning Syst em data, providing the wearer with walking or driving directions. Some watches are used professionally by police officers and military personnel for dispatch and GPS information. [6] Two watches have come out as the most popular within the last five years. This is the Samsung Watch and the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch first launched in April of 2015. It runs on WatchOS. There have been a few redesigns since the launch. The first iteration of watchOS focused on communication with friends and heartbeat sharing. These watches are highly customizable with numerous band styles and custom faces. Samsung watches were some of the first created, dating back to 2012. They carry all of the same features as the Apple Watch, but with a twistable bezel for customization purposes.

Foot Worn
Smart shoes are an example of wearable technology that incorporate smart features into shoes. Smart shoes often work with smartphone applications to support tasks cannot be done with standard footwear. The uses include vibrating of the smart phone to tell users when and where to turn to reach their destination via Google Maps or self-lacing.

Self-lacing sneaker technology, similar to the Nike Mag in Back to the Future Part II, is another use of the smart shoe. In 2019 German footwear company Puma was recognized as one of the "100 Best Inventions of 2019" by Time for its Fi laceless shoe that uses micro-motors to adjust the fit from an iPhone. Nike also introduced a smart shoe in 2019 known as Adapt BB. The shoe featured buttons on the side to loosen or tighten the fit with a custom motor and gear, which could also be controlled by a smartphone.

New developments of foot worn technology includes the invention of the Boogio. Boogio consists of two devices, both of them being placed in the shoes of the user. The tech can then detect any force that is exerted on the feet and this information is then transmitted to a mobile handset. There is also a Bluetooth module that will attach onto the side of the shoe and this is the part of the tech that transmits the data. Reflex Labs say that Boogio will offer 60, 0000 layers of pressure sensitivity and this means that the devices can pick up even the smallest amounts of 3D movement in real time. Beyond just fitness the applications also include gaming, as the devices can pair up with Oculus Rift to detect movement of the wearer in 3D space, translating this to the virtual world. It could also be applied to fitness the same way, with games being tailored to provide motivation towars excercising. The Boogio could also be used in medical applications, for instance it could provide feedback on recovery from an injury. The tech could also offer feedback for runners along with other forms of athletics. The team behind the tech said that it could also be used by simply leaning slightly to the left or right so as to control a slideshow.

Whole Body Worn
A new form of wearable technology has been marketed in recent years called WHOOP Body. This type of technology is changeable based on a users needs. Its purpose is to be invisible to provide discrete technology. It can be worn on a wrist band, body garment, sports bras, boxers, leggings, and tops.

There are several lines offered by WHOOP body, including their training, intimates, and health lines. The idea behind the technology is that in purchasing one of the WHOOP body chips, you can change the way you wear it depending on your needs. Their line is style-driven and meant to be both flexible and comfortable.

WHOOP body did a study of professionals who wanted the benefits of this type of wearable technology, but without wearing something on the wrist or outside of the uniform.

WHOOP 4.0 is now 33 percent smaller than comparable devices with better battery life, and an impressive list of new features. The upgraded sensor ups the ante by letting you don the device off your wrist with WHOOP-compatible apparel. To figure out where--besides the wrist--the WHOOP sensor could take accurate readings, WHOOP’s engineers looked for spots where blood flow beneath the skin was close enough to the surface to track, factoring in muscle and tendon movement, as well as how the device is secured against the skin to reduce signal noise and movement. WHOOP Body uses an algorithm that allows WHOOP 4.0 to detect the sensor’s location on not only the wrist, but also the leg, arm, waist, chest and torso—to continuously capture data in those locations. The 4.0 tracks all workouts, sleep and recovery well, even during the hardest sessions on the Peloton or in the gym. The Whoop 4.0 can also track skin temperature and blood oxygen levels, two measurements absent from the 3.0.