Wearable Technology

This premium article looks into emerging biometrics, such as wearable alcohol sensors, lactate sensors, and hydration sensors, as well as emerging methods like urine sensors in smart diapers, 'Clinic on the Wrist' and 'Lab-on-Skin', and more.

Scientists have created a face mask that can detect common respiratory viruses, including influenza and the coronavirus, in the air in droplets or aerosols. The highly sensitive mask can alert the wearers via their mobile devices within 10 minutes if targeted pathogens are present in the surrounding air.

This premium article explores virtual reality (VR) and VR headsets, including tethered, standalone, and smartphone/mobile, as well as the timeline of modern VR.

Several industrial, automotive, and healthcare applications rely on accurate and precise measurement of pressure. Flexible and wearable pressure sensors are typically fabricated using petroleum-based polymers. The solid waste generated from using such non-biodegradable plastics is harmful for the environment. To avoid this issue, researchers have now fabricated pressure sensors that use paper as the medium.

IDTechEx tried out various demos of Microsoft's HoloLens 2 mixed reality-capable augmented reality headset at Laval Virtual 2022 and attended the company's presentation.

DigiLens is a major innovator in holographic diffractive waveguides that has attracted interest from major investors including Samsung.

Visionaries 777 (V777) is a Hong Kong-based company that builds software to link locations and objects to videos and information for purposes including training, marketing, education, and more. The company spun out of Lego — its founders were originally hired to create an AR department at the company.

Lenovo showcased its ThinkReality A3 headset at Laval Virtual 2022. Released in 2021, these are marketed as a lightweight AR headset or smart glasses, as opposed to an MR device.

HTC Vive has taken interesting approaches with its VR offerings in late 2021/2022, including use of WiFi 6E to support location-based entertainment and offering a compact headset aimed at unconventional consumer applications.

Engineers a have created a small, autonomous device with a stretchable/flexible sensor that can be adhered to the skin to measure the changing size of tumors below. The non-invasive, battery-operated device is sensitive to one-hundredth of a millimeter (10 micrometers) and can beam results to a smartphone app wirelessly in real-time with the press of a button.

Panasonic sub-brand Shiftall showed off an exciting compact VR headset at CES 2022, aimed at higher-end gaming use. Despite appearing close to a final product at the event, the headset has yet to launch in September 2022.

Holo|one is a Swiss-headquartered firm with US and Chinese offices which provide its Sphere platform for enterprise MR. This is designed to smooth XR solution development and tie it into existing software solutions.

Engineers have developed a process to print solid-state polymer electrolytes into any shape desired for use in energy storage. The research team say the 3D printing process of such material could be particularly useful in future medical devices where small, intricately designed energy storage offers a number of benefits.

Qualcomm's Snapdragon Spaces SDK is designed to streamline and simplify XR development, particularly for AR/MR. One of its stated benefits is porting content from smartphone apps to AR/MR glasses to smooth the transition towards spatial computing.

Pico, a VR headset firm under the ownership of TikTok parent ByteDance, announced its first consumer-targeted VR headset for Western markets at Laval Virtual 2022.

Nreal is a Chinese firm producing AR glasses using birdbath optics for consumer applications. They use a smartphone to provide video and act as a screen replacement system.

Tess Skyrme, Technology Analyst at IDTechEx, caught up with Director Martin Peacock to discuss Zimmer and Peacock's wearable sensor platforms.

Using thin-film electronic patches or the so-called electronic "tattoos" for biomonitoring is paving the way for the future of healthcare in terms of better signal quality, higher patient comfort and wearability.

This premium article introduces wearable electrodes and their applications before focusing on wearable electrodes for ECG, looking into cardiac monitoring skin patches, ECG monitoring pain points, key market players, and more.