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Wearable computing is “the study or practice of inventing, designing, building, or using miniature body-borne computational and sensory devices”.1
Wearable computers, or just “wearables” for short, are small computing devices (whether digital or analogue) that are designed to be worn under, over, or in clothing, or may actually be clothes (i.e. “Smart Clothing”). Compared with a portable computer (such as a PDA), a wearable is typically designed to be worn in a particular way such that it becomes “inextricably intertwined”1 with the person wearing it; the wearable becomes in some sense an extension of it’s wearer.
Perhaps the first electronic wearable was a 1960s computerized timing device that was designed to help win at roulette; in one version of this, microswitches hidden inside a shoe were used to program an analogue computer with the speed of the roulette wheel. The computer would then indicate which octant of the roulette wheel to bet on by sending musical tones to the user via radio to a miniature speaker hidden in the ear canal2.
Contemporary examples of wearables include fitness trackers, smart watches, body cameras and optical head-mounted displays (OHMDs; also known as “smart glasses”). Many of these now include low-power wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi®, Bluetooth® or Bluetooth® Low Energy.
Our Expertise
As well as being specialists in low-power wireless communications, we have contributed to the development of a number of wearables products (such as the world’s first Bluetooth-enabled wearable intelligent camera). We also have good experience of writing Bluetooth-connected companion smartphone apps for Android and iOS.
How We Can Help You
With our in-depth knowledge of the Bluetooth® and Bluetooth® Low Energy protocols, the Bluetooth industry, low-power wireless device manufacturing, embedded software development and smartphone app development, we are ideally placed to help you develop the products you want.
1. Quote taken from section 23 of The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd Ed.
2. http://graphics.cs.columbia.edu/courses/mobwear/resources/thorp-iswc98.pdf