Wearable Computers That Fit You Well

By Roland Piquepaille

In "Wearable Computers You Can Slip Into," BusinessWeek Online reviews several new unobtrusive wearable devices, such as a handbag with embedded chips. When this bag becomes available for about $150 in two or three years, it will remind you to grab your wallet or to pick an umbrella before going out. And according to research firm IDC, the clunky wearable computers which required users to be wrapped in wires like Christmas gifts are quickly becoming things of the past. The future of wearable computers is already here, especially for some health-care applications, such as a 'smart band' that collects data on your physical activities and can be used as a weight-loss monitoring tool. But read more...

Let's start with a bag designed by Gauri Nanda and fellow researchers at the MIT.

Gauri Nanda sees a wearable computer as a... handbag -- one that's built out of four-inch squares and triangles of fabric, with tiny computer chips embedded in it. Assembled together with Velcro that conducts electricity, these pieces form a bag that looks, feels, and weighs like your typical leather purse.

That's where the similarities end: This bag can wirelessly keep tabs on your belongings and remind you, just as you're about to leave the house, to take your wallet. It can review the weather report and suggest that you grab an umbrella -- or your sunshades. This purse can even upload your favorite songs onto your scarf.

Here is a picture of one of this 'Build Your Own Bag' project (Credit: Gauri Nanda, MIT). [Warning: access to this page will change your browser resolution. Why people continue to use these kinds of tricks? I don't know, but geeky things are certainly annoying sometimes.]

Of course, this kind of bag is using new technologies, such as RFID tags embedded in your wallet, or special fabrics, such as the Aracon fiber from DuPont. But the surprising thing is that -- no pun intended -- it will not break your wallet. Such a bag will cost only about $150.

Now, here is the 'smart band' from BodyMedia, which is about to be deployed in fitness clubs.

Here, you can see how this works in the above image (Credit: BodyMedia). The unobtrusive 'smart band' collects data on your physical activity, which is then processed by proprietary algorithms and finally displayed on a variety of devices.

Originally released three years ago as a tool for researchers -- auto makers, for example, used it to understand stress in drivers -- the band is about to enter the mainstream. Later this month, Apex Fitness Group, which distributes fitness products to 1,200 health clubs such as 24-hour Fitness, will begin promoting the band for consumers as a weight-loss monitoring tool [and under a cute trademarked name -- bodybugg.]

Then, there is a special shirt developed by VivoMetrics to monitor patients at hospitals, and which can also be used to accelerate new treatment trials.

Here is an illustration showing all the components of the VivoMetrics shirt (Credit: VivoMetrics).

Because of the volume of data it collects, the shirt can significantly reduce the number of participants in trials, as well as the trials' duration. In the case of one study for a sleep drug, traditional methods like hooking up patients to various machines at a special sleep lab "would have been at least 10 times more expensive and would have taken 10 times longer," says Steven James, a San Diego consultant to pharmaceutical companies. During this trial, 15 patients simply wore the shirts at home overnight. VivoMetrics sells a set of six shirts and related software and data recorders for $15,000.

Finally, BusinessWeek Online reports about the Nomad head-mounted display from Microvision, Inc. You can find more information about this device in a previous post from December 2004, "New Wearable Armyware."

Sources: Olga Kharif, BusinessWeek Online, March 8, 2005; and various websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Fashion
  
• Materials
  
• Medicine
  
• Pervasive Computing
  
• RFID
  
• Wearable