Moving out of the labs and into the streets, wearable technologies have the buzz as they begin to hit gyms and fitness enthusiasts attention. It’s called disruptive technologies and Google Glass is leading the buzzwaves.
Moving from “swipes” to voice commands or head gestures or simple tap controls – the new head-up displays can capture and display information, photos and videos and yes, your heart rate on your swim goggles, your sunglasses, and your car’s windshield. Though still a futuristic technology, it holds the promise of creating a different and compelling experience for you which has the power to fundamentally change how you communicate, socialize, entertain, and collaborate using everything from multimedia technologies to biofeedback displays.
Wearables in health and fitness are expected to be a major IT market. While the focus now is on preventive health through fitness activities – an how to monitor and track them – with the new healthcare laws in the U.S. the boom may well be on prevention.
Moving away from awkward devices that capture your physiological responses during and after your workouts to the new wearables that provide at-once, on-demand data all shown on your smart glasses with a readable overlay screen embedded in them with what you want to view: your bikes power output, your speed and distance, your current caloric expenditure, heart rate variability, and time in each of the five heart zones – all without having to turn your head.
There is no industry leader yet as the competition heats up. Check out the Indiegogo crowd source funding for start-up Instabeat and the new sunglasses that display color in the lens to give you your heart zones by 4iiii. And, as app developers catch up and on, you will be seeing your heart rate on the smart watches like Meta Watch.
It’s your choice. Are you for this new Orwellian future in which privacy is near impossible or are you going to join the ranks of the “glassholes” ready to have every experience recorded and effortlessly teleported to the cloud? It’s coming soon to a web store near you.
Sally Edwards, The Head Heart, Heart Zones USA
Other Manufacturers of HUD, Heads Up Display:
Recon Instruments
Instabeat (for swimmers)