From FitBits to Smart watches and Google Glass, tech developers want to incorporate their products into our everyday uniforms. But as the makers of Google Glass found out in January, creating wearable technology that people actually want to use is harder than they they thought.
Glass, computerized glasses that could connect to the internet, take pictures, and display images for the user, lasted only a few short lived months in the marketplace. And many of the smart watches released in the last year have been underwhelming.
“Some of it is just too obtrusive, and some of it defies the rationale of technology – to simplify our lives," Bobby Burch, technology reporter for the Kansas City Business Journal, told Steve Kraske on Up To Date. "I think that was the issue with some smart watches, I don’t want another screen to take care of and another device to charge at night.”
Some Kansas City entrepreneurs, however, are producing innovative wearables that indicate the direction this new technology seems to be heading.
Leawood, Kansas resident Claude Aldridge first introduced Trellie in 2013 as a simple wireless charm that hung on a woman’s handbag and lit up when she was receiving a call or message.
“We laugh about it now, we used to refer to ourselves as consumer electronics for females, because ‘wearables’ wasn’t even a coined term yet,” he told Kraske.
Now, his company is partnering with jewelry retailers to develop smart jewelry. This tiny hardware will embed into a ring, for example, and a user can program it with an app on their smartphone to vibrate or light up when they’re receiving a notification.
“The idea is you can put down your phone and still be connected to the important things,” Aldridge said.
He says that it’s very important to make something that people actually want to wear. Incorporating the technology into jewelry, which one might already have in an outfit, gives it another function without being obtrusive. This is a point which the makers of Google Glass failed to execute.
“It failed in the cool factor,” said Burch, who tested Google Glass. “Definitely not something I would use in my everyday life. I believe there was a phrase coined [for Glass wearers] – ‘glassholes.’”
Davide Rossi, a former resident of the KC Startup Village, is another local entrepreneur developing a unique brand of wearable tech. FitBark is a dog activity monitor that tracks how much time your dog spends playing, sleeping, or exercising while you’re away.
“It’s about the feeling that you never understand your dog well enough, and trying to do something about it,” Rossi said.
For this type of technology to be successful, he says, you have to find a specific niche where your product can really fit.
“If you’re able to tackle and solve a specific challenge that's daily and repetitive, then that’s where you win, conquering the whole space overnight is impossible, even for Apple,” Rossi said.
According to Burch, wearables may someday become so personal we may never take them off.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it somehow integrated into our bodies at some point. I don't know know what form that would take, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see implants of some kind five, ten years down the road,” he said.
