Wearable Technology

From its inception, RealWear has focused on products that are specifically designed for the connected enterprise workforce to improve job satisfaction, productivity and, most importantly, safety. Its industrial hands-free wearable computers enhance a worker's situational awareness while delivering vital information on-demand in the harshest of environments.

The sophisticated technology that powers face recognition in many modern smartphones someday could receive a high-tech upgrade that sounds — and looks — surprisingly low-tech.

ElectroDermis is a fabrication system that simplifies the creation of wearable electronics that are comfortable, elastic, and fully untethered. Electronics that can be temporarily attached to the body (like bandages or party masks), but functional and aesthetically pleasing.

Smart wearable technology that changes colour, heats up, squeezes or vibrates as your emotions are heightened has the potential to help people with affective disorders better control their feelings.

A voice-recognition feature can be easily found on mobile phones these days. Often times, we experience an incident where a speech recognition application is activated in the middle of a meeting or a conversation in the office. Sometimes, it is not activated at all regardless of numbers of times we call out the application.

Statex and Laird Performance Materials have announced a joint and new capability which creates selective plating and high electrical conductivity onto both sides of stretchable fabrics. Potential uses will range from components found in consumer/professional wearable products to medical devices to military/aerospace and automotive critical systems.

IDTechEx visited Toppan Forms at their headquarters in Tokyo. They described their recent development of a temperature sensing skin patch for monitoring temperature changes during ovulation in women, supporting women's health management.

Fukuda Denshi are a $1.2bn medical devices company based in Japan. They have developed a skin patch for cardiac monitoring, focusing on the detection of atrial fibrillation (AF) in the period after a heart failure event. IDTechEx interviewed Shoei Kimoto, Hiroma Kobayashi and Tsukasa Toma at their site in Tokyo.

Imagine not seeing anything nor hearing anything. Such communication obstacles affect all aspects of life. Many people with deafblindness communicate via tactile signing and also haptic signals (touch and movement) on the body. Now, researchers are working to digitise and integrate this into a garment.

The lives of thousands of people with mobility issues could be transformed thanks to ground-breaking research by scientists. The FREEHAB project will develop soft, wearable rehabilitative devices with a view to helping elderly and disabled people walk and move from sitting to a standing position in comfort and safety.

A wearable non-invasive device based on near-infrared spectroscopy can be used to investigate blood volume and oxygenation patterns in freely diving marine mammals.

The new version of the IDTechEx report "E-textiles 2019-2029: Technologies, Markets and Players" includes brand new data about e-textiles revenue. The main forecast in the report focuses on specific product revenue across different sectors (including biometric monitoring, heating, lighting and other e-textiles), but for the first time, this report includes additional historic data and short term estimates for the total revenues of companies working in the space.

The narrow web embossing machine will be utilized during the development of new microstructures. With quick and easy setup and no special skills required to run it, the machine will enable the company to rapidly run prototype samples on a pilot scale, a capability that will streamline the process and significantly reduce waste.

IDTechEx focuses on many different emerging technologies, many of which are related to the development of new form factors in electronics.

Autofocals are intended to solve the main problem with today's progressive lenses: These traditional glasses require the wearer to align their head to focus properly. With progressive lenses, there's little or no peripheral focus.

Dynofit, Inc provides patients and their therapists with muscle activity data in real time, which can be used to track patients' muscle strength or recovery during physical or occupational therapy.

Chronolife developed a smart shirt device for monitoring various physiological parameters.

Johnson and Johnson (J&J) exhibited at the event a VR setup for training surgeons.

IDTechEx will be hosting a free webinar on Thursday 4 July 2019 titled Transforming Healthcare through Remote Patient Monitoring.

Researchers have developed a device that uses near-infrared light to monitor blood flow. The hybrid instrument, which relies on the combination of two light measurement techniques, could be used to quickly and noninvasively diagnose cerebral ischemia.