Wearable Devices: Applications, Consumer Issues, And Possible Solutions Essay.

What are wearable devices, and what are their general applications?

1.What are wearable devices,Provide several examples of general applications of wearable devices?

2.Describe some of the consumer-related issues that are mentioned in this article,briefly discuss possible solutions to the issues?

The wearable devices are considered as small computing devices that can be worn by the users. Most of the times these devices communicate with another computer or mobile devices so that they are able deliver user’s needs in an efficient manner. Presently, there are three types of wearable devices are available commercially (Jakicic et al. 2016). These are smart watches, fitness trackers and smart glasses.

Smart watches: This kind of watches do more than just keeping time, it connects with the smart-phones wirelessly so that user can easily answer to their calls, see the received messages, play music. Most of these devices provide a touch screen so that user can interact with the devices.  

This new technology is hugely used in the different fields in order improve the efficiency of those fields. The wearable devices are mainly used in the health care, infotainment, manufacturing industry and in military. 

Personal health care: In personal health care, The RA’s (Remembrance Agents) are wearable that consistently notifies the wearer about the data related to their health depending on the user’s present physical and heath issues (Wahed and Belle 2016). RAs are dependably on and constantly active and working rather than being activated in the emergency situations.

Digital story telling: Use of the wearable cameras can improve the engagement of a learner in their field trips. Such as using the wearable devices the professor can teach their nursing students to sterile the equipments direct from the operation room.  

In enhancing sports performance:   There are several companies that are connected with the development of the wearable devices that helps the players and athletes to analyze their performance and improve their performance by eliminating the different flaws in their actions (Jakicic et al. 2016). Example of this kind of wearable device is “Smash.”  These wearable devices are developed and designed by a startup company in Australia

Figure 1: “Smash” wearable band device for Tennis players.

Military uses:  In case of military, most of the developed countries developed gadgets that are helpful in warfront for their soldiers (Jakicic et al. 2016). Such as the wearable tiny cameras in the helmets of the soldiers that provides real time video  streaming  of the war front at the head quarters  so that, the backup can be sent to the war front in minimum respond time.

Examples of general applications of wearable devices

Figure 2: Use of wearable devices in military

(Source: Wahed and Belle 2016, p.98) 

Figure 3: Estimated Market Size of wearable devices in 2020

(Source: World Economic Forum 2017)

There are several issues that act as constraints in the adaptability of the wearable devices in the commercial market. Some of this is bulky designs of the devices, higher power consumption, high initial cost to acquire the devices and most importantly the lack of security of data and privacy.   

 Bulky design:  One of the most discussed constraints in ace of the adoption of Smart Wearable Technology devices and its market is the bulky design of wearable gadgets in light of the fact that most buyers/ consumers use traditional wearable accessories, as an example, jewelry, glasses, wristbands and watches to create an impression  in the society. From the context of the users, the wearable devices are used by the consumers to reflect the fashion trends.   

Presently, most of the wearable gadget manufacturer and designers concentrates to the innovation as opposed to concentrating on attractive design of the devices. For example, the greater part of the smart watches in the market keeps running on components and processors that are developed for smart phones, therefore they are bulkier compared to an ordinary watch. So also, brilliant wearable eyewear may not reflect trendy design that attracts the consumers in the market.

Higher power consumption: Another constraint for the manufacturers in the market is the high rate of power utilization of the wearable devices (World Economic Forum 2017). Most wearable devices utilize remote systems to process the collected data, wearables like GPS and different other wearable devices are developed in such a way that they consume a huge amount of power from its internal rechargeable devices.

Presently, the battery can empower the wearable devices for one to two days.  If the devices are intensely used by the users, the charge of the battery can be drained in a day (Jakicic et al. 2016). As an example if we consider the Google Glass, its battery can supply power for 4-8 hours in case of the intensive use of the device.

Therefore, the reduced battery life along with higher rate of power consumption of wearable gadgets are lessening the adoption and  use by the consumers, which is relied upon to hamper the development prospects of the market amid the forecasted growth.

Lack of privacy and data security:  even though the wearable devices are small in size but they can store GB’s of data. Most of these devices utilize GPS navigation frameworks to get area based data about the individual wearing the devices. Infrequently, consumers need to share their location based data with the manufacturers or service providers to get certain kind of information they require (ComputerWeekly, 2017).  The similar happens in case of the Google Glass; consumers need to share their location based information about their location while checking-in at any place or in another country, which is stored in its database central as well as regional database. This kind of data can be retrieved by different advertisers and can be used business purpose that may annoy to the users.

Consumer related issues with the wearable devices

As the users tend to buy the wearable devices that are trendy and fashionable designs. Therefore, the engineers need to design the devices in an attractive way so that this can attract the potential customers.

In addition to this,  the  devices must use the new kind of power sources like the solar panels so that the bulky batteries does not make the design of the wearable’s a bulky one.   

Moov Now: “Moov Now” application is the most discussed fitness application worldwide. It is really magnificent in light of the fact that it joins 5 unique programmes to meet the requirements of runners and walkers. Every program utilizes interim preparing to help smolder more calories and to encourage runners to run speedier and additionally separates. The application furnishes the users with various levels permitting them to test themselves.

My FitnessPal: My Fitnesspal is one of the applications that are appraised for the applications for health and weight reduction purpose. It contains the biggest food related database; roughly 5,000,000 nourishments. With the mix of practice section, and calorie following My Fitnesspal can help the users shed their additional pounds inside under 5 minutes of cell phone utilize a day. The best element is that it is totally simple to utilize. You can track nourishment calories by basically checking the standardized tag. The application can perceived more than 4 million sustenance standardized identifications.

Wearable devices with recording abilities of locations follows posture spying concerns, and businesses ought to draft policies on when the gadgets ought to be closed according those norms (Jakicic et al. 2016). For instance, if a representative is going to a union meeting, the recording or area following capacities could uncover that individual's personals details.

Again the issues related to the protection of the intellectual properties are also at stake due to the use of the wearable technologies. This leads to the lack of protection of the intellectual properties of the business organizations and individuals.

In addition to this, the recording and capturing the images of the individual and organizations without their permissions are also considered as the source of different ethical dilemmas.  

 The data stored in the wearable devices are stored without any security mechanism. Wearable devices store information locally on the devices without encryption or other security mechanism. Often it is seen that no PIN or password assurance, client verification, no biometric security are required to get the information on a wearable device (World Economic Forum 2017). On the off chance that if the device is gets into the wrong hands, there is a hazard that confidential and sensitive information could be used in a wrong way

As most of the security issues need to be addressed by the manufacturers of the wearable devices therefore they need a standard that may be set by themselves or by the concerned regulatory authority or governments (Jakicic et al. 2016). This will help the manufacturers to set a fair usage policy for their devices for the users.  Therefore use of the compliance and standard can ensure the security of the data of the users to a large extent.

The users of the wearable smart watches, smart glasses and fitness trackers collect health, personal and financial data and store them into a central database of the manufacturers.    The data privacy policies are vague and often end up with the clauses like “We may share the collected information with the third parties.” Which literally leads to the breach in the privacy of users personal data. 

References

ComputerWeekly. 2017. Wearable technology creates new privacy issues for employers. [online] Available at: https://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240223173/Wearable-technology-new-privacy-headaches-for-employers [Accessed 27 Jan. 2017].

Hänsel, K., Wilde, N., Haddadi, H. and Alomainy, A., 2015, December. Challenges with Current Wearable Technology in Monitoring Health Data and Providing Positive Behavioural Support. In Proceedings of the 5th EAI International Conference on Wireless Mobile Communication and Healthcare (pp. 158-161). ICST (Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering).

Jakicic, J.M., Davis, K.K., Rogers, R.J., King, W.C., Marcus, M.D., Helsel, D., Rickman, A.D., Wahed, A.S. and Belle, S.H., 2016. Effect of wearable technology combined with a lifestyle intervention on long-term weight loss: the IDEA randomized clinical trial. Jama, 316(11), pp.1161-1171.

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World Economic Forum. 2017. 3 key issues for wearable tech and health. [online] Available at: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/10/wearable-tech-true-health/ [Accessed 27 Jan. 2017].

Zhou, J., Cao, Z., Dong, X. and Lin, X., 2015. Security and privacy in cloud-assisted wireless wearable communications: Challenges, solutions, and future directions. IEEE Wireless Communications, 22(2), pp.136-144.