It’s one of the big buzzwords of the moment, the Internet of Things . It’s been dubbed as the next industrial revolution – or as businesses call it – Industry 4.0. Between that and A.I, there’s enough to overwhelm even the most tech-savvy. There’s talk of toasters that use machine learning to make the perfect toast, refrigerators that can order their own milk and butter when reserves are low (no more running to the corner shop before breakfast), and even buildings that have voice activation and temperature control according to the weather.
There’s a lot to anticipate over the next few years in the way we run our lives and our homes. But one of the developments that is perhaps much more tangible and accessible to everyone is wearable devices. IoT driven wearables are set to change everything, and this interactive infographic shows us exactly what to expect in our lifetime.
Here is the wearable tech that will be possible in the very near future!
Smart Glasses
Smart eyewear has had rocky beginnings, with Google Glass plummeting to its death and being one of the most widely talked about tech failures in recent years. But the story doesn’t end there, and according to data compiled by the World Economic Forum, more than 10% of all glasses, headsets and eye-tracking devices will become intelligent’ by the year 2022.
Snapchat spectacles, although considered a fad after a drop in sales after Q2, have garnered much attention. And there’s an ever-growing list of names when it comes to AR eyewear for every day/sports use, including Vuzix Blade AR, Solos, Everysight Raptor, ODG, Vuzix M300, Epson Moverio, and the new Kickstarter project, Vue, which uses bone conduction tech to mimic earphones.
Solar Powered Clothes
Imagine a t-shirt that could charge your phone while you’re on the go. Or a jacket that could give your laptop a boost when you’re in a long work meeting. The possibilities are endless with wearable solar tech and can do wonders for reducing our carbon footprint. According to the infographic, clothes that create and harvest their energy will become increasingly popular and can be expected to be mainstream and more accessible by the year 2025.
Back in 2016, the textiles industry discovered that solar panels could be incorporated into panels of fabric. So the scope here is potentially huge. Not only can we turn wearable garments and accessories into renewable energy generators, but we can also apply the concept to curtains, home upholstery, car upholstery and anything else textile-based.
Wearable Drones
Expected in the year 2030, wearable drones will become the next big fashion statement. A senior interactive designer at Frog Design referred to the next few decades as the “post-smartphone era”, and suggested that personal computing would evolve with drone technology in the future. This was about the company’s Wearable Drones in the City‘ project, a series of works which showed detailed concepts of what wearable drone concepts could become a reality.
Their concepts included a hovering drone that could be used to protect against air pollution in the city by supplying fresh, filtered air close to the owner’s mouth, a GPS drone that assists with finding your way to your desired destination in any location in the world, and a weather-shielding drone that could ward off the elements such as wind and rain by hovering above your head.
