Wearable technology is creating a revolution in the way we experience and interact with sports in our daily lives. This revolution is not only at the professional sports level, but also at the amateur and hobbyist level, as wearable technology leads to advances in player health, safety, and entertainment. Sensors are working their way into our daily life, whether it is in smart watches, fitness trackers, apparel, shoes, wearable cameras, heart rate monitors, or GPS tracking devices.
Sports technology in past years was all about wrist-worn wearables and fitness trackers. In addition to Apple Watches, Fitbits, and other wearables, sports tech is continuing to expand into compression sleeves, heart-monitoring devices, as well as sensors that are sewn into uniforms, clipped to or woven into apparel, sewn into sneakers, and other gadgets you can wear from head to toe to monitor and measure performance. An athlete can now track performance outside a standardized lab, and in his or her natural environment, thereby increasing the applicability and amount of data available to measure performance.
The notion that wearable tech is simply a “gadget” is fading. As wearables expand into smart devices and fabrics, wearable technology will become more fashionable with real style and functionality. Companies such as Under Armor, Hexoskin, and Ralph Lauren are investing heavily in this space. Under Armor spent millions of dollars acquiring health tracking mobile apps like Endomondo and MyFitness Pal. Hexoskin makes Smart Shirts that monitor cardiac, respiratory, sleep, and activity, without the encumbrance of smartbands and chest straps. Even Ralph Lauren, an iconic fashion brand, has introduced the PoloTech shirt, a smart shirt that combines the label’s preppy fashion aesthetic with the ability to monitor performance mainly focused on heart rate, breathing rate, and calorie expenditure. Once you launch The PoloTech app, it will tell you how your workout went, and you can also share on social media, should you be so inclined.
Smart fabrics are increasingly coming of age. New research in fiber technology involving biology, organic chemistry, material science and electronics is creating new textiles capable of interacting with your body and environment. Woven technology that looks like traditional sports clothing, uses special filters that are woven into garments to act as a conduit to transmit and receive the body’s vital signs to a central processing unit, which can gather data from athletes. Another technology using printed electronic ink enables a circuit to be printed into a garment whereby body sensors can be connected to a central processing unit. These smart fabrics can be designed for fashion, as well as for function.
Already, there is fashion smart jewelry that integrates alerts, heart rate monitoring, and even tracks steps and sleep patterns. Smartwatch straps are being developed by companies like Mont Blanc to work with existing watches combining fashion with the functionality of the latest fitness tracking technology.
Wearable apps are also being developed to coordinate with the wearables, so that data can be integrated into multiple devices, enabling social media and your phone to provide personalized recommendations based upon personal habits, fashion, and lifestyle. The iWatch and Pebble watch both support downloadable apps. Advancements in wearable technology will bring together strategic partnerships with mobile application software to deliver a meaningful user experience. Combined with smart devices and wearables, Over The Top Streaming Platforms (OTT), which deliver content over the internet rather than traditional broadcast, will also change the way we use our devices for fashion and entertainment.
All of this data collection from wearable technology brings opportunities for innovation, with massive opportunities for growth in wearables. The use of data derived from wearable technology will create better athlete experiences, and create more value through fan interaction and engagement on social media platforms and team and league websites. Big data, combined with cognitive analytics, which uses machine learning to get real-time feedback, will also leverage training schedules by providing real-time feedback on workload, health, diet, and performance for people who want to live a healthy lifestyle, as well as for athletes of all levels, whether they be professional, amateur, or weekend athletes.
All in all, data and analytics derived from wearables are creating a new fashion industry where fashion designers, engineers, start-ups, and IT companies are developing the future of design for smart clothing and accessories.
Vicki Dallas
Chair of Technology Group
Buchalter
www.buchalter.com
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