Wearable gadgets trace link between fashion and technology
Fashion merging with technology used to be something out of this world. But over the last few decades, as technology evolves, fashion seemingly doesn’t want to be left behind. The link between fashion and the technology sector has a long history, culminating in wearable technology products that have changed the daily life of anyone who wears them. Wearable technology refers to all those electronic devices that can be worn as accessories on the body by the user while providing some benefit to the wearer, very often making use of AI tools.
Eyeglasses were probably the first technological accessory that human beings ever wore, which were invented during the Middle Ages, but which we hardly consider a technology today, perhaps because they are no longer an innovative product. Wearable technology started to evolve especially towards the second half of the 20th century: some tangible examples are the calculator watches invented in the 1970s or even the Walkman in the 1980s.
Technology has quickly evolved since the start of the internet: consequently, wearable technology, year after year, has also been at the center of a relentless evolution. At the beginning of the new millennium, Bluetooth headphones, iPods, Fitbit, wearable webcams began to spread, which totally changed the way we understand fashion, no longer considered a mere aesthetic trend, but with a specific technological function capable of accompanying us everywhere.
From 2010 onwards, there was a real boom: objects and accessories of this kind began to develop really faster, finding their way into wardrobes and drawers of millions of people, as with the launch of the first Apple Watch in September 2014. Today, the Apple Watch is among the best-selling wearable technologies. These are some of its many functions, included or not depending on the model: watch, alarm clock, ability to receive messages and make phone calls, monitor physical activity and make payments.
The Taiwan Textile Research Institute has designed a T-shirt equipped with a device that monitors the wearer’s activity and can alert runners when they are pushing too hard. In recent years, AI has contributed greatly to making wearable technology even more innovative and interactive. An example of this are augmented reality viewers, initially used in the world of video games.
Apple’s Vision Pro represents perhaps the latest frontier in this type of wearable technology. The smart visors launched by Apple are considered to be the first model of ‘spatial computing’, as it is literally having a computer at hand at all times, but without a screen, and working in the space surrounding the user. It is a totally new way of interacting with technology, once again launched by one of the most disruptive brands in recent years. Its highlights are a large, portable, private 4K display, FaceTime goes spatial, an immersive experience and features Apple’s first three-dimensional camera.
Another novelty in recent years, combining jewelry and technology, are smart rings which can monitor the health of the person wearing them, collecting data such as steps, kilometers traveled, heart rate, speed, oxygen levels, just like a smartwatch. Among the smart rings, one of the most innovative models of this type of wearable technology was launched at the Mobile World Congress in February 2024: the Samsung Galaxy Ring. Much lighter than other models, it is equipped with a suite of advanced sensors capable of providing an overview of all health-related data including fertility monitoring.
