A prediction in the 2015 Consumer Devices Report by IT research company Gartner suggests that before long wearable technology will be virtually invisible.
The report states that by the year 2017 30% of smart wearable will be “unobtrusive to the eye”. This means that the upcoming smartwatches and other wearable pieces of technology could be really hard to spot.
Annette Zimmermann is research director at Gartner and she said that there are some current developments underway that could help for consumer wearables to “blend seamlessly into their surroundings”.
Smart Contact Lenses and Smart Jewellery
She gave the example of smart contact lenses as one type of unobtrusive wearable that is being worked on. Another example comes with smart jewellery that could be worn unobtrusively.
Zimmermann pointed out that there are currently about a dozen different crowdfunding projects that are in the process of being developed. This includes sensors being built into pieces of jewellery for the purposes of communication alerts and emergency alarms.
Another way in which we see smart technology being blended in more seamlessly comes with the Withings Activité fitness tracking device. This gadgets crams in sensors and Bluetooth technology but look like a far more traditional watch then it really is.
A further prediction from Gartner is that 25 million head-mounted devices will be sold by the time 2018 comes along, although there are a number of issues still to be resolved in this field first of all. This type of gadget would include Google Glass, Oculus Rift and Sony Project Morpheus.
Would you prefer to wear a camouflaged wearable or one that stands out more?
image courtesy of BBC
Although wearable tech is becoming more and more advanced shouldn't we be researching into batteries or a power source that never losses charge. If we did then any future wearable tech wouldn't have to worry about how long people could use it before it need charging.