Page 39 - A U4SSC deliverable - Accelerating city transformation using frontier technologies

Wearable technology

Overview on wearable technology

Wearables are wearable objects or gadgets that use sensing technologies to track user movement and
collect biometric data for different uses. By using a wireless connection, wearables can support the users
in staying fit, tracking their health conditions, organising their daily life, and more. There are multiple
types of wearable devices (WD), including smart-watches, fitness trackers, sport watches, smart
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glasses and hearables. Smart-watches can monitor users’ physical activities and health conditions, such
as blood oxygen tracking. Fitness trackers can monitor heart rate, estimate calorie burn and measure
other biometrics. Sports watches can not only monitor the user’s physical condition but also provide
insights that would improve their athletic performance. Hearables can also enable voice assistants
such as Siri.

The wearable market is growing at an exponential pace, with the number of connected WD expected
to reach over 1.1 billion by 2022. It is also estimated that by 2026, 14 million workers will be using
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smart glasses or other similar devices to improve performance.
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With the growing number of WDs and wearable device-related services (WDS), issues related to
communication, security, cost, power consumption and device management become more prominent.
From a technological point of view, most WDs cannot store and analyse data locally because of their
limited computing power and resources. They can only support short-range communication protocols
like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Reliable and secure gateway capabilities are needed to process a vast amount
of collected data for WDs.

Improving health and quality of life using wearable devices

The impacts of wearable devices can be broadly classified into the following: 107

• WD-related health management services (WDHS): WDs used in the health management domain can
include sensors to measure a broad range of physiological parameters, including heart rate, blood pressure
and oxygen levels, sleep and mood conditions, and potentially even complex measures such as stress or
blood sugar levels. WDHS can put together all the data related to an individual for the generation of a per-
sonal health record (PHR) for health management and medical consulting.
• WD-related sport services for running exercise: A WD can be used for recording health and sporting
activity, from an accumulated number of steps taken in a day to travelled distance and motion trail. Using
biometric data and information that is stored in WDs (e.g., gender, height, age of the runner, etc.), WDs can
suggest exercise plans based on the analysis of exercise records.
• WD-related assistant services (WDAS) for the assistance of police officers on duty: WDs can be worn
easily or carried by users for professional use, e.g., in law enforcement. Through the interconnection with
the police system, WDAS can greatly increase the work efficiency of the police.
• WD-related multimedia services for broadcasting entertainment services: It is common for citizens to be
attracted to WDs for the multimedia entertainment content that is available to them. WDs with multimedia
functionality will greatly impact the multimedia industry.

Accelerating city transformation using frontier technologies | A U4SSC deliverable 29