If you think you’ve seen it all with wearable tech, get ready for some new surprises. This was the key takeaway from the 2022 WEAR Conference — an event that showcased the best wearable tech and where the industry is headed.

For the Product Creation Studio team, it was clear at this year’s conference in Scottsdale, Arizona that the wearables market is continuing to experience phenomenal growth, resulting in hyper-segmentation in the industry ecosystem. At the event, we saw the implementation of smart, wearable technologies converge into all areas of life: sports and fitness, health and medical, kids and seniors, and even pets. 

Of particular interest, the categories of health and fitness are mixing with consumer gadgets and fashion in ways we never thought possible. These devices employ the latest in AI, sensor technologies, virtual reality, and wireless power solutions. The biggest theme was a need for a better user experience with an emphasis on how users interact with the technology to enhance user adoption. One of the “dirty secrets” of wearables is that many don’t make it past the six-month mark, and with battery life being a challenge, answering the question of how to keep your product out of the junk drawer becomes the focus.

Anything worn on the body and using technology is considered a wearable and the possibilities are endless. Fusing traditional textiles with diagnostic, therapeutic, and protective medical devices can unlock e-textiles’ potential to serve as both fashionable and functional wearable technology. In fact, according to recent research, the e-textile market is expected to increase by USD 10.25 billion between 2021 and 2025, while the consumer health and wellness wearable device market is estimated to jump from 320 million units shipped worldwide in 2022, to 440 million units by 2024. 

At their core, the technologies and devices we review in this article drive home the idea that technology should be fashionable, invisible, and improve lives in the process by giving users and caregivers the information needed to make better healthcare decisions. 

Remote Patient Monitoring

From baby monitors to smart rehab systems, remote patient monitoring is getting very specific – shifting to more value-based, patient-centric care and outcomes. Spurred by COVID, the lockdown saw the rise of remote patient monitoring in which chronic health conditions can now be managed and monitored at home. Everything from weight, lung capacity, pulse, oxygen saturation in blood, and blood pressure to insights into pain management, medication management, and mental health are reducing the strain on in-hospital services while making healthcare more convenient, safer and lowering overall cost.

In fact, seniors were the biggest drivers of digital health and wearable technology overall. A silver lining of COVID, newer products born from the pandemic help seniors stay in their homes longer, live more independently, and enjoy a better quality of life. 

Sensoria Health,  a leading developer of sensor-infused footwear, garments, and accessories, seeks to improve lives while providing actionable information to patients and clinicians in near real-time. Sensoria’s technology has integrated into both existing products (e.g., smart diabetic footwear), as well as created its own subset of new and exciting products.

Sports Wearables 

AI and wearable devices will play a key role in athletic wear and keeping athletes healthier. One such company embedding motion sensors into engineered athleticwear is Motusi Kit. Unnoticeable to the user, comfortable to wear, and washable, the embedded sensors capture user data securely in a lightweight module and push it to the Motusi App. Motusi’s AI and proprietary algorithms generate insights related to movement quality and injury to help athletes progress in their performance or recovery.  

Another big takeaway from the Motusi App is its data collection and visualization capability. 3D visualizations communicate sophisticated performance metrics which have big applications in digital health. In addition to athletes, the bigger market potential for the product is in physical therapy – the accuracy of communication between provider and patient is improved because they are both seeing the same 3D data.

Immersive VR

The future of interaction in virtual reality worlds will come in the form of wearable computing, another area of growth. The opportunity to borrow technologies from the gaming industry can potentially influence fields as diverse as medicine and space travel. 

“The future of computing is in the hands and the wrists,” Dr. Kristy Jost, Facebook (Meta). 

Research Science Manager at Facebook (Meta), Dr. Kristy Jost, delivered a session on “Smart Textiles for XR”, sharing her work on wearable interaction devices in AR/VR, with a focus on devices for the hand and wrist (e.g., haptic gloves). And while Kristy’s work focuses on the gaming world specifically, the possibilities for this research are immense. In building a haptic glove, the breakthroughs Dr. Jost and her team are making in fluidic switching and control – not to mention soft robotics – could lead to radical advances in the medical industry in lab-on-chip diagnostics, microfluidic biochemistry (which is also an emerging field), and even wearable and assistive devices.

Smart Wearables in Everyday Life

While companies have been working to incorporate wearable technology in their products across industries, Qualcomm is investing in the convergence of these industries and the implementation of smart technologies in all areas of life: fashion and luxury, sports and fitness, kids and teenagers, and also seniors and pets.

“People don’t wear tech, they wear fashion.” -Pankaj Keida, Qualcomm

Qualcomm’s vision – to always be connected from head to toe – reveals an emphasis on e-textiles to be at the core of this convergence. Powerful sensors and electronics in the weave of the material with components that are stretchable, breathable, and even washable – and invisible to the naked eye. It’s clear that smart wearables are starting to deliver on their promise to make every facet of our lives more personalized.

What’s next? 

With patient, clinician, and caregiver needs continuing to evolve, the only sure thing in the wearable tech industry is that innovation will not be slowing down. There are promising opportunities that verge on science fiction as ingestible, gel and fluid sensors and circuitry, and charge-as-you-wear technology opens the door to even broader application. If you’re a stakeholder in product development, you don’t want to take your eye off the ball here!

Product Creation Studio has deep experience designing wearables for applications ranging from patient monitoring to athletics. We’re here to put our experience to work for you!