The future is wearable

In the last 10 years smartphones have radically changed our habits, for better or for worse. Yet in recent years there has been a silent growth in the number of devices that, born as simple accessories useful to complete the features of phones, are becoming increasingly important as stand-alone products capable of carrying out a series of activities in complete autonomy.

The devices with which we interact today in our daily lives are nothing more than the digitalization of tools that have provided their service for an immensely long time.
It was in 1972 that Hamilton Watch Company and Electrodata Inc created the Pulsar, the first prototype of a digital watch equipped with an LED screen. The organization that has guided the pace of technology on the watch, is definitely Seiko, which in 1984 released to the market the first device capable of working as a sender / receiver of written and voice messaging. More than 10 years later it was the same company that developed the futuristic Ruputer Pro, the first watch with personal computer functions.
It is in the 2000’s that Microsoft, which has been working on this particular field for a long time, collaborates with the most popular watch brands such as Citizen, Fossil and Swatch for the promoting of intelligent watches with software developed by the Redmond firm. Sadly, however, this project turns out to be a failure due to a weak response from the demand, perhaps not yet ready for this kind of technology.
The turning point comes in 2015 when Apple, after changing the mobile industry, decides to launch its own smartwatch, which meets a success never had before and gives a boost to the smartwatch market.
The same house of Cupertino will repeat a few years later rewriting the concept of headphones.

In this case, the pioneer company of the last century was Koss, which in 1958 developed the first headphones that could be connected to a stereo and in 1968 released the first headphones with electrostatic technology. It was the first Sony Walkman in 1979, bundled with the first portable headphones, which marked an entire generation of music lovers. The 2000s were marked by a technological improvement, such as noise cancellation, management, with the launch of the iPod and iTunes, and aesthetics, thanks to Beats by Dr Dre and finally AirPods, which started the true wireless era.

The reasons behind the explosion of the smartwatch, which accounts for about 60% of the market value of the wearable industry, are many. The main factor that leads the customer to prefer this device is certainly the need to reduce addiction to the smartphone, thanks to the possibility of receiving notifications. At the technological level, enormous progress has been made: today a smartwatch is endowed with user-friendly operating systems able to perfectly interact with the ecosystem of its companions such as smartphones and tablets but, at the same time, to behave as an autonomous device offering customers exclusive services such as the increasingly accurate GPS tracking of their movements and the collection of information relating to personal health, such as the ECG.
The growth of this product is evidenced by the purchase in November 2019 of Fitbit by Google for 2.1 billion, which aims to improve the user experience of Wear OS but above all it aims to develop an own smartwatch capable of competing with Apple and Samsung.

On the other hand, true wireless headsets help to separate from the smartphone thanks to features, such as the voice assistant recall, that allow it to perform activities such as the access to multimedia content and telephone applications without having to check the main terminal.

The disruptive boom of wearables comes at a time of profound evolution with regard to the health care attention you have. Today, the user evaluates with much more interest aspects of their lives, such as movement and sleep, and for this reason the devices have to be equipped with features that allow you to monitor the physiological levels.
Initiatives such as the Apple Health Study show how the sensitivity is growing even by companies that continue to develop biosensors through which it is possible to contribute not only in the prevention but especially in the immediate identification of signs of decay in the state of health of a person.
The wearable revolution, albeit with a little delay and some disappointment (such as Google Smart Glass), intends to extend to other areas of our lives such as clothing (smart clothing), skin (skin marks) and sight (smart contact lenses).

The considerations and data reported in this article indicate a path that follows a precise pattern, which is repeated at every technological revolution.
Computers were born as main devices able to carry out a series of functions in a centralized way. These features were first decentralized to the different peripherals and finally transferred entirely to mobile devices.
Likewise, wearables, which today are nothing more than an extension of the smartphone, are intended to replace the main terminal which will be nothing more than a support tool for them.

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