By Eli Sinaiko
In recent years, the concept of wearable technology has primarily been applied to fitness. I mean, who wouldn’t want a pair of compression shorts that monitor your blood pressure and heart rate? Or a pair of socks that track how far you’ve run? Radiate Athletics recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to crowdfund a line of shirts that change color as you work certain muscle groups and burn calories.
The ability to fuse fashion with technology has never been greater. Nor has the earning potential; especially with sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo paving the way for enterprising entrepreneurs and do-it-yourself’ers to launch projects sans a primary financial benefactor or investor.
As demonstrated by the introduction of the Apple Watch, wearable technologies are only becoming more prevalent in society, in storefronts and in online marketplaces. When a company like Apple features a wearable technology at its much-anticipated annual product reveal, it doesn’t believe that the technology lacks potential or targets too niche a market.
Investing in a new technology signals faith in the future success of said technology. Venture capital firms and large companies will only invest more in these technologies going forward.
While wearables gain a stronger foothold in multiple markets and the technology is molded into new forms to perform new functions, the possibility of unintentional innovation in other industries grows.
For instance, wearable technologies have recently been incorporated into music making. Already, products such as the ‘Mi-Mu’ glove for music, and ‘Drum Pants’ which transform your average pair of jeans into a drum set capable of producing over 100 different sounds, have the potential to revolutionize the process of music-making.
Like fitness fanatics and athletes, musicians both casual and professional will soon be able to equip themselves with a wide range of wearable musical technologies. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
Imagine what other amazing wearables the future has in store (no pun intended):
A hat that doubles as a personal music player?
An earring integrated with Bluetooth capabilities?
Or even a pair of augmented reality glasses? Oh wait…those have already been made.
