Wear the future: Innovators and gadgets tapping onto our bodies

Hyderabad: A few months from now Apple will release its Watch — a wearable device that gathers crucial physical data whilst attached to your wrist. Or, from wherever you decide to wear it. A sensor in the machine — an accelerometer — will detect motion and count calories and also remind you with a beep, if you have fallen short of the daily count. It also plans to tally the number of steps climbed and analyse cardio activity, all this while checking your texts. And even as you sleep, the watch will monitor your every little tick.

The real health trackers

To really understand the impact wearable tech will have on our futures, we need to travel to Bengaluru, where over half a dozen firms are currently in a race to churn out the ultimate health-monitoring device, and to conquer what is fast becoming a multi-billion dollar industry with India in its epicenter. A recent study by consulting firm Accenture claims Indians were the “most interested” when it came to wearable tech. The research, of 6,000 consumers across six countries, said four out of five respondents here were “willing” to buy some kind of wearable device. Additionally, 80 per cent of Indians were most interested in buying fitness monitors for tracking physical activity and managing their personal health followed by smart-watches (76 per cent) and Internet-enabled eyeglasses (74 per cent).

The industry also estimates that the wearable tech market will swell to a stunning Rs 2,500 crore in 2018, from this year’s paltry Rs 50 crore.

The Bengaluru-based 2mpower Health Management Services, which is also backed by former Infosys board member Mohandas Pai, recently unveiled its first personal health and activity tracker, GetActive tapp, and is hoping that much of India’s desk-bound IT staff warm up to it. “The World Health Organisation recommends at least 10,000 steps per day, while most users recorded only 1,500,” says 2mpower’s founder and CEO, Mohammed Hussain Naseem. “In particular, IT professionals here in Bengaluru have the least amount of activity and the information is certainly worrying. It shows urban India lacked basic activity… and you must know that exercise is crucial towards feeling good,” he adds.
 
Let’s walk
 
Naseem and his team have created a sort of social “walking” experience for their 15,000 users. “So with the device around your wrist, you can check how much you have walked, can post results on Facebook or Twitter and based on the data, you can even challenge others to beat your score,” claims Naseem. As an added incentive, affiliations with online stores such as Myntra.com mean users can also redeem “walking points” during the purchase of an item. Naseem adds: “It’s all about motivation and incentives. You need to get them out and walking and these devices are trying to take that experience to the next level. I can’t really predict the future… but these devices will help you boost your overall sense of wellbeing — what’s better than a good old morning walk?”
 
Everyday companions
 
It’s not just walking where wearable tech is trying to help. In the next three years, your daily commute will be assisted by servers, the entire Internet and a tag-along device or component… or even clothes that display your mood. Here’s actually the most bizarre of them all — Daredroid. Designed by popular Dutch fashiontech designer Anouk Wipprecht, the Daredroid is a “biomechanic cocktail-making dress that mixes medical technology and human temperament to provide you with a freshly-made cocktail”. You have to first play a truth or dare game and the sensors at the back will detect your mood and react accordingly — churning out a non-alcoholic drink — it’s the bartender-on-your-back.

Wipprecht’s outfit hasn’t stopped with just fluids. There’s also the Smoke Dress, which emits a harmless cloud if your personal space is encroached by an unwelcome visitor. It claims to create an “organic border”, communicating the world’s least subtle “get lost” signal. Then there’s the Climate Dress — a pollution-sensing prototype that monitors ambient CO2 levels, which can alert you of bad air using hundreds of tiny LEDs that have been stitched into the garment itself.
 
Keeping the doctor away, and informed

The debate still rages and most doctors believe data collected by wearables is just “something to go by”. “But we are looking at it the wrong way,” says Prof. Sadagopan, director, IIIT-Bangalore and a proponent of wearable tech. “The world must know the difference between wellness and illness. We go to doctors when we’re ill while wellness should be a department we should be handling ourselves. Health monitors keep you on the alert and frankly, my device gives me more motivation to exercise daily than my wife.”

The professor continues: “The best part about these devices is we’re wearing them where we are used to wearing things — the wrist or the neck. These spots contain indicators too, such as the pulse and the heartbeat. And wearable tech is simply using indicators we’ve always had. In our cities of today, where doctors are often beyond reach, for the elderly and even the young… having a personal ‘fitness prompter’ is helpful and you could even quickly transmit data to doctors if need arises.”

Companies are now mulling handing out these fitness trackers to core employees. “Fit and healthy staff certainly benefit a workplace and it won’t be long before we explore how health insurance benefits can be passed along through the use of fitness trackers,” reveals a human resources official at a Bengaluru-based IT firm.
 
The problem with uptake
 
Understandably, wearable tech now is where mobile phones were five years ago — still lacking the oomph to convince customers to dive in. There’s also a gap in uptake, which means data recorded may not be accurate or may not be crucial in prognosis or diagnosis. Good news though, these little devices are getting there.
“Can they predict a stroke? Not yet. But these monitors are fast learning and it’s just a matter of time before they are able to put all the signs together to assess risk,” believes Prof. Sadagopan.