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Wearable technology


Wearable technology, wearables, fashionable technology, wearable devices, tech togs, or fashion electronics are smart electronic devices (electronic device with microcontrollers) that can be worn on the body as implant or accessories. The designs often incorporate practical functions and features.

Wearable devices such as activity trackers are a good example of the Internet of Things, since "things" such as electronics, software, sensors and connectivity are effectors that enable objects to exchange data through internet with a manufacturer, operator and/or other connected devices, without requiring human intervention.

Wearable technology is related to both ubiquitous computing and the history and development of wearable computers. Wearables make technology pervasive by interweaving it into daily life. Through the history and development of wearable computing, pioneers have attempted to enhance or extend the functionality of clothing, or to create wearables as accessories able to provide users with sousveillance—the recording of an activity typically by way of small wearable or portable personal technologies. Tracking information like movement, steps and heart rate are all part of the quantified self movement.

The origins of wearable technology are influenced by both of these responses to the vision of ubiquitous computing. One early piece of widely adopted wearable technology was the calculator watch, introduced in the 1980s. An even earlier wearable technology was the hearing aid.

In 2004 fashion design label CuteCircuit unveiled a Bluetooth connected electronics called the HugShirt at the CyberArt Festival in Bilbao, Spain, where it won the Grand Prize at the festival. The HugShirt, designed for tele-transmitting touch over distance, differs from previous early wearable technology examples (e.g. watches or the helmet designs of Wearable Computing in the 1990s) because product is the first wearable technology that took the form of a garment of clothing, as such it is also marks the first BlueTooth connected and internet connected clothing. This product was included by Time Magazine in the "Best Inventions of the Year" special issue.


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