Smart Wearables Are Not (Really) Smart After All

Why Smart Wearables Should Work Symbiotically

A friend of mine told me how Microsoft and Timex teamed up to develop their first smart watch back in the early ‘90s – I can imagine how hard it might have been, given the ubiquity of watches at the time and the novel idea of making them “smart”. Back then the watch was supposed to do only one thing: tell time! The smart watch was largely viewed as a gimmick; lost on people were the sophistication and applicability of smart scheduling, connectivity and everything that comes with having a microprocessor on your wrist.

Fast forward 10 years or so, I remember reading somewhere that the smart phone generation actually prides itself on not having to wear watches. In a sense there was no need to… you get all the apps you would ever need in the app stores! But when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone in ‘07, this reinvention of the phone meant that nothing was safe – there is a smartness to be required everywhere. 

There were apps – oh my – there were so many of them. When presenting Project Mirror - an ongoing IoT passion project of mine - there was no room for a startup with such emphasis on hardware and software, everything was app-sized.

But since the coming and going of wearables (2013 and onwards), the increasing availability of affordable sensors and easy access to both visual and algometric artificial intelligence, it is no secret that we are now at the verge of a smart wearable breakthrough. Not only in smart watches but also in everything “smart”: glasses, fashion tech, health & wellness, etc. – it’s time! 

Despite the buzz and the timing, the sad truth is that there is redundancy in the competition between wearables, though their degrees of precision vary. Be that as it may, it is overwhelming to see every slight modification of sensors needing its own app in addition to the already existing mobile apps that are resident on users’ phones. At WearMe, we see this as an information overload! 

As seasoned devOps/SecOps we have a saying to never overdo – never falter – but that is exactly what is happening. It is time to reign-in a uniform development framework, one that is symbiotic – developers can specialize and collaborate – getting all the data they need from other sensors while maintaining quality aesthetics and value to the most important component of them all – The Human

That is what we are trying to do here at WearMe; creating a community and platform for wearable developers to take their wearable products from ideation to scale!


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