Wearable computers, whether they are watches or heads-up displays are becoming popular but they all suffer from the same problem: they are self contained. Despite the need for them to be extremely small, for what they are designed to do they need to contain all the basic components found in a smartphone. This means that components that normally need to be bulky, such as the battery, are forced to be undersized and therefore do not meet user expectations.
For example, according to
techradar, the Google Glass only lasts for five hours with normal use and less then an hour when recording video. Since a day is twenty-four hours long, this is clearly unacceptable if it is going to be as an essential part of peoples daily lives as a regular watch or smartphone is now.
While new technology may mitigate these problems, after my experience with the
Timex Datalink and seeing how smartphones features often offload work to "the cloud" (like voice recognition), I am wondering if wearable devices should be treated more like portable monitors/keyboards/sensors/etc. and less like full computers. While they might have some basic functions(time, authentication), any serious functionality would be carried out using your smartphone or by a device that is also worn but its bulk is more easily hidden or accommodated by the user.
The challenge of course would be how to connect the two without creating more problems. Wireless is often the knee jerk choice and it might be up to the task but power and security issues might also make this unworkable. Seeing as many people already use wired headphones/ear buds, I feel that some form of wired technology is possibly the best option. Not only could the wire provide power, but it could be fast and secure. The challenge is how can the current awkward to user wire be improved for all day wearing and possibly even be able to run down the users arm.
I would envision this would be analogous to wiring a building with Ethernet, where twisted pair cables are put in the walls and devices attach to the network using the standard jacks that are available wherever there is an anticipated need. A standard wire or other communication medium would be stabled with access points distributed around.
The best solutions will be ones that can integrate the wire with the user's body or clothing to create something comfortable to wear without much work. This could include something that the user can attach to themselves or by using something that occurs naturally like the body's electricity or movement. Of course, another option would be implanting the wire in user.
I think this could also be invaluable to the medical community as it would make it easy to connect and power implanted medical devices. The public would probably be most adverse to this, a least for now. But as people see how well these new devices work, wiring people may become as normal as getting an immunisation, getting cavities filled or having a pace maker installed.
In the future, it could simply be normal for everyone's body to be outfitted their own Personal Network of interdependent devices.
