Chapter 10
Real-World Applications
10.1 Real-World Applications
Wearable devices and applications are not intended to increase the amount of information that a user needs to consume, rather they are meant to make the consumption of such information easier. Given that there are tasks and actions that a user needs to carry out, Wearable devices and applications can it make more convenient for the user to do so.
10.2 Handheld Application Extension
Given an existing handheld application, there will likely be a small subset of the functionality that makes a compelling case for extension into the Wearable platform. Probably, the most important and time-sensitive notifications in the handheld application represent what will likely be beneficial for extending to the Wearable flavor of the application.
10.3 Home Automation
Many home appliances and accessories such as washers, dryers, toasters, thermostats, light bulbs, and so on have commenced to include network connectivity via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and so on. Home appliance manufacturers have commenced to recognize the advantages of making their devices network enabled and service oriented—based on inter-operable and open standard-based technologies, rather than proprietary mechanisms. Wearable and other IoT devices in the consumer arena can tend to feed off one another and provide incremental value to the consumer, by their ease of inter-interoperability.
The presence of more “smart” networked devices in the consumer’s network brings up the opportunity for interaction and control via Wearable/smart watch-based applications. Consumers tend to appreciate being able to control their home appliances via their Wearable/smart watches and receive relevant notifications as well.
10.3.1 Home Entertainment
Several entertainment, media, video, audio systems, and accessories have various forms of connectivity such as wired or wireless connectivity, Bluetooth, and so on. Wearable applications that interact with and facilitate control over entertainment systems can be very useful.
10.3.2 Gaming
Wearable devices such as smart watches with sensor-based applications have potential in gaming, as do accessories like Wearable bands and vests with sensors. Smart watches with relevant sensors create opportunity for Wearable applications that transform a generic smart watch to a game console by detecting and processing motion, orientation, balance, and so on. Consumers tend to prefer a generic hardware device, which in conjunction with quality software applications transforms the generic device into a specialized gaming device for the duration that they are engaged in playing games. This also tends to make the game more available and lowers the overall price of the game.
10.4 Wearables at the Workplace
Wearables at the work have many obvious use cases. For one, busy executives need to remain focused on real-world activities, such as a business meeting, while also keeping up to date about other important updates (with minimal overhead, via glanceable interactions). Glancing at a watch is less intrusive and more polite.
In case of mobile field staff who work with tools and/or handle real-world workloads, there are many scenarios where the Wearable can prove more useful than a handheld device—via glanceable information updates and action-based interactions for acknowledgments and statuses.
10.5 Fitness, Health, and Medical
The medical “triage” of heart rate, temperature, and blood pressure, which are typically measured at a doctor’s office or hospital, can be measured by consumers themselves as part of their fitness data—at various times of the day and upon engaging in different activities. Although Google Fit, for instance, currently excludes medical applications, in the long term, there are likely to be changes to the laws that are more accommodating toward consumer-based devices and applications that serve a function that overlaps with formal medical sensor devices and applications. While the cost of health care has been rising, the cost of consumer electronics and generic software that can measure certain health-related parameters is falling. Many manufacturers of fitness sensor devices also happen to manufacture medical devices. With more consumers interested in, and with the ability to measure and store their own fitness parameters via cost-effective means, it is possible and even likely that these two worlds (of formal medical records and consumer’s own fitness records) will not remain isolated for very long. This opens the door to innovation and opportunity in the arena of fitness, health, and medical applications.
10.5.1 Predictive and Proactive Consumer Health
In the long run, the collection of fitness and health data has the potential to help provide a proactive and predictive approach toward health care and management. With many parameters such as weight, heart rate, blood pressure, etc. collected routinely on a periodic and frequent basis, there is opportunity to analyze their trends over a period of time and gain some useful insights.
Advances in nano-technology are beginning to make it practicable for ingested probe pills/nano-bots to probe the human body for diagnostic information and communicate with their Wearable and handheld devices to collect advanced diagnostic data, while users go about their normal daily schedules. Using both routine and advanced sensor data, in conjunction with data analysis and prediction algorithms, it is likely that doctor’s visits will be based upon dynamic recommendations rather than on some fixed, periodic schedule.
10.5.2 Wearables for Medical Professionals
Head-mounted displays have been used in medicine and surgery for reality augmentation and training. These have been based on custom hardware and software, which is typically more expensive. With the arrival of consumer Wearables including Google Glass, there is opportunity for new applications that can provide cost-effective augmented reality solutions that address some of the use cases in the medical arena. Vision-based systems (as covered in Section 2.9.1) have introduced innovative sensing and measurement mechanisms for bodily parameters.
10.5.3 Wearables and Remote Medical Diagnostics
In some developing nations with limited resources and few medical doctors, remote monitoring using Wearable, IoT, and handheld devices is already in use today—mobile field staff deliver basic health care with remote assistance from centrally located systems, doctors, and hospitals. Sensor, handheld, and Wearable devices help in the acquisition of body parameters. Such innovation stems from absolute necessity.
In developed nations and depending on the particular country specific laws governing medical practice and standard practices, the particulars may vary. Oftentimes in developed countries, remote monitoring has been in use for patients with special needs and those needing long-term monitoring. With regard to the delivery of basic health care, many developed nations have a more conventional and conservative approach. However, health care costs keep rising, and many routine doctor’s visits turn out to be unnecessary or avoidable. The leveraging of consumer wearables and generic monitoring devices for purposes of medical purposes can help reduce health care costs. It can also be aligned with the predictive and proactive approach covered in Section 10.5.1. There has been much work done in the field of mobile device-based remote diagnostics and screening, more details of which can be found at
http://miter.mit.edu/articlesana-providing-hope-healthcare-through-mobile-technology/
10.6 Industrial Manufacturing
Wearables have potential use in industrial manufacturing of specialized components in automobile, aerospace, and other industries. Much like in the case of devices for medical professionals, consumer Wearable devices with innovative software have the potential to provide cost-effective augmented reality solutions for industrial manufacturing.
10.7 Civic, Government, and Democracy
Wearables have been in use in law enforcement, and consumer Wearable devices with innovative software solutions have the potential to provide cost-effective augmented reality solutions in this arena. IoT devices have applicability in the management of civic infrastructure and resources.
In the representative form of government—commonly in existence today—citizens get to choose their representatives at election time; after the election is over, citizens depend on their representative to make decisions on their behalf. Direct democracy is a form of democracy in which citizens get to vote directly on all issues and policies. The growth of ubiquitous computing and technology makes it easier to implement “Direct democracy” in practice. Direct democracy allows the entire citizenry to participate in government directly to the degree that they would individually care to. Direct democracy can coexist with the representative form of government; however, the votes on issues that come straight from the citizenry directly might become difficult to ignore.
References and Further Reading
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Contact_Lens
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-mounted_display
- http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/29/tech/mci-nanobots-eth
- http://web.mit.edu/zacka/www/moca.html
- http://miter.mit.edu/articlesana-providing-hope-healthcare-through-mobile-technology/
- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149792/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoex
- http://www.cnet.com/news/wearable-book-lets-readers-feel-the-fiction/