The Year of Wearable Technology

If the year that just passed by was the "Year of the Mobile App", I have this strong opinion that this year is going to be the "Year of Wearable Technology".... Now how this happen to me to wake up and come to make such a conclusion?
Read on to know more.

The Year of Wearable Technology

There have been many a fitness app's that you could install in your smartphone and then have them track your progress through the day.
These apps come in majorly 2 forms

    -- Ones that require you to keep your phone with you at most times
        Examples: Noom, endomondo, Walkdroid, Runtastic, Run

    -- Others that require you to keep feeding in data for achieving goals that you have set yourself.
         Examples: CalorieCounter, Weight Tracker

Now it is in both these forms that I see downsides or laggards leading to wide scale usage, these could be summarized as follows:

1. I do not keep the phone with me during all times to track my activity from 00:00 to 23:59
2. I would not like to have to deal with attending to disturbances and minor irritants (like receiving a message or an update) while keeping my phone next to me when I sleep.
3. I do not want to charge my phone battery as the plethora of mobile apps that need to be installed and which need to run in the background keep draining the life out of my battery.
4. I need something which can continue to keep me motivated after the initial days of euphoria and self-motivation.
5. I am so lethargic that I wish all the data collection is done automatically by my app and does not depend upon me to enter my data. (This one happens to be the most important)

It is to the rescue of folks like me that I discovered Wearable's and in this post hope to highlight some of them. I intend doing detailed analysis of some of the wearable's that  I write about in this posts in future blog posts.

For the unknown's here is a definition:

Wearable's: a word used to define any wireless physical activity monitors, typically used by humans to collect and collate data about the physical activity that the person wearing the wearable does during the course of the day.

So lets get started.................

Wearable#1: Shine by MisfitWearables

This is one company that sure is out to make "Wearables" into a style statement. You can turn this wearable into a necklace, a watch, a hipster, on your coat... and of-course you can carry it around in your pocket as well. 

P.S And they have an interesting tag line "Wear it, Move it, Sync it" yes sounds eerily similar to an old motorcycle ad tag line.

Wearable#2: Fuelband SE by Nike

The veterans who I would deem to be the First-off-the-block in terms of "Wearables", Nike's Fuelband is a band for the wrist, it tracks all your data and syncs it to apps.

Their tagline "Smart, Simple and Fun way to get more active"

Wearable#3: Flex by Fitbit

The wearable that I currently own and use to track my data, Flex comes with a unique watch or wrist band like look that wirelessly monitors your activity(including sleep). 

P.S Also has a big brother version called Force

Wearable#4: Up by Jawbone

This is a wearable that I have seen the most number of people wearing, it comes in different colors and the design of this "wearable" for me is unbelievable. 

P.S do check out a video of the testing that they do on this product.

Wearable#5: Pulse by Withings

The latest wearable that came to my attention, the Pulse. This "Wearable" looks the most traditional and outdated of the lot. However the digital display on the wearable has a lot of information that can be viewed easily. I really like the way all those designer's thought of the form factors which are displayed in the limited space that they can utilize.
P.S They have a video too

Wearable#6: Basis from MyBasis

A sedate, wrist based activity monitor, I say looks like how the iWatch could look. comes with a host of features and is the "Wearable" that I have researched the least.

This is just an indicative Comparison, I might have missed a few that you folks who are reading this blog might know about. Please do leave me a comment for me to know about more such wearable's so that I can do a deep dive into them.

Inthi,
Manuswath


And hey a P.S I will go through and describe each of these wearable's in detail in further blog posts, so do keep coming back!!!