This is a combination of an in-body sensor that could measure key nutritional parameters about the user with a cloud-based service that could analyze those parameters to provide feedback to the user about what they should be eating.
If it were possible for an in-body sensor to send a semi-real time report into the cloud about the user’s diet – because it could measure those key parameters directly – then the user could choose to make this data available to a third party service provider for analysis.
The service provider would then be able to make recommendations as to what the user should buy when at the supermarket – the user’s location would be used by the service to determine when the user was in a food shopping mall.
Furthermore, the same service could make recommendations for a personal or family-optimized menu at mealtimes. Because the service would know whether the user had any mineral or other deficiencies or excesses, then a suitable menu could be recommended. This could be in the form of tablet supplements or just a recommendation like “How about salmon tonight – you should have some in the freezer?”
One of the biggest costs of an insurance company lies in the processing of insurance claims.
If a user was wearing a suitable pair of smart glasses, which might be required for navigation purposes anyway, then those glasses would be able to record the entire journey using a roiling window to minimize data storage requirements. This would mean that any accident could be recorded on video. The same pair of smart glasses could also record exactly what the user was looking at, at the time of the accident, as well as other information such as speed.
Far more interesting would be what happens if an in-body sensor were to be combined with such a pair of smart glasses. In this case, it would be technically possible for the insurance company to determine if the user was driving after a lack of sleep (because the sensor would monitor sleeping patterns) or if the user’s blood contained too much alcohol.
If such technology were to become available then we think that users who were willing to use the technology – that offers many such positive benefits – would enjoy significantly reduced car insurance premiums
It is interesting to think what might become possible if smart glasses are combined with police databases and facial recognition software.
We are not too far from the point when a police officer could use a pair of smart glasses to automatically obtain information about a person that was within the officer’s field of view – simply by asking or by setting a default.
This could be possible in real time as a police officer is speaking to a person with the resulting information being projected onto the officer’s field of view.
The smart glasses could take a picture of that person and send it to a cloud-based police service where facial recognition technology would match the picture with an entry in a police database. The police officer might not know who he was taking to but this technology would be able to alert the officer if the person was a suspect in an ongoing case, had a criminal record or, hopefully in most cases, had no police history at all.
Thinking a stage further ahead, then we can foresee the facial recognition camera technology that is already installed at most security gates at airports being integrated into smart glasses, so that a police officer walking down a crowded street would automatically be alerted to the presence of a suspect walking towards him.
One of the major use cases for Google Maps is navigation. But so far most of Google’s navigation services have been focused on cars or pedestrians in urban areas.We think that an opportunity exists for navigation services to be developed specifically for those who engage in outdoor pursuits.
To take one example, it is very difficult and potentially dangerous to ski in bad visibility. Mist, cloud and snow can combine into a single featureless morass where it is extremely hard – even for an expert skier – to assess speed, angle of slope or what the upcoming terrain is like. If a Google Glass-like technology were to be integrated into a pair or ski goggles then this problem could be alleviated.Based on official route data that been recorded by park authorities, or potentially user-uploaded data that had been validated for accuracy, then the skier would be able to ski in white-out conditions with the safe route and terrain precisely marked on their field of view. While by no means a green light to ski normally, such a system could help save lives, especially in off-piste skiing situations where the skier has to avoid cliffs and other serious hazards. We can see similar applications in mountain walking, sailing and off-road running.
One of the main problems that individuals encounter when embarking on a personal fitness program is lack of knowledge to train efficiently – rather than just train.
If a fitness tracking system were to be combined with a wireless earbud system and a cloud-based ‘personal trainer’ service then this problem could be addressed.
Having set up an online account and uploaded a week’s data the service would have a fairly detailed understanding of the user’s current fitness. This understanding could be enhanced by the user inserting their wireless earbud to receive requests such as ‘perform 10 press ups’ and then 'perform 10 squats' etc. The results of this exercise could be used by the service to fine tune its understanding of the user’s current fitness level.
Next, having chosen their desired fitness objective, the service could provide encouragement and advice to the user during each workout – such as "Mary, you could do with working a bit harder here – I’d like to see your heart rate at 160."
When combined with an voice recognition system then this could become a complete AIU-based two-way personal training system.
The enterprise applications for wearable technology have only scratched the surface in terms of applicability and use cases. Wearable technologies have touched almost every enterprise vertical market, including automotive, manufacturing, healthcare and medical, logistics, field services, retail, construction, and many more. Although the enterprise wearables market is smaller than the consumer market, the variety, breadth, and scope of how wearable technology can bring speed, efficiency, lower costs, and improve workflows for businesses suggests that a tremendous growth opportunity exists. The companies that are using wearable technology range from large hospitals to small clinics and from top-tier Fortune 500 companies to small- and medium-sized businesses that are trying to experiment with a brand new computing platform in wearables and find their own efficiencies.
As wearable devices continue to evolve and improve – an inevitable occurrence as Apple made evident with the unveiling of native app capabilities on the second version of the Apple Watch – the number of unique use cases will increase.
First movers already made great advances in applying wearable technology to accomplish business goals, enhance connectivity, and provide quality information and data. Specifically, the 15 companies interviewed demonstrate how wearables fit into and enrich five sectors: health and fitness, lifestyle, productivity and organization, food, and enterprise. Their projects hint at the rich future of wearables.
As the platforms progress and developers and businesses acquire morelessons learned from experimenting with wearables, the potential for more and better use cases is immeasurable.
