How wearables could revolutionize health and fitness

Wearables are all around. You name it and you have it. There is a wearable designed for every aspect of daily life such as health, fitness, sports etc. For example cycling related wearables such as smart helmets, arm and wrist bands, trendy running smart watches, smartphone-powered blood pressure kits, health care devices such as stride trackers and fitness trackers to name a few.

 

Talking about fitness and health, it is especially for those who need help remembering to exercise, fitness and activity trackers are designed to keep track and inform you about your activity throughout the day. Some trackers are capable of tracking your sleep by monitoring it. Some trackers have built-in heart rate monitors; some have options to connect to a heart rate monitor too. Most of the fitness trackers available in the market are able to connect and sync with your smartphone and computer which helps you to review your daily activity.

 

Some questions that haunt the minds of many….Will the wearable technology expand? Will it succeed in capturing the attention of consumers across the globe? What steps would technology companies take? Will they come up with new service offerings?

 

 

Let us have a look at the factors that will keep the momentum going to revolutionize health and fitness….

1.  

   1. Consumer Profiles: The wearable technology is definitely catching up, and IT companies are focusing on interconnectivity and connecting data to create the most apt profiles possible for individuals. The profile maintains data related to each person such as their weight, number of hours of sleep, calorie count and the like. This data is maintained in order to make it useful to the individual as and when required. With this data they can surely come up with newer ideas and offerings.

2.  

   2. Medical Alerts: With the penetration of IT in the Medical field it is now possible to track pulse rates and body movements of individuals and tell how the person is doing. Surely, you can look forward to many more advancements. Smartwatches will be smarter in the coming years and probably will be able to render medical alerts to consumers which will keep them aware of their blood sugar levels and whether a medical treatment is necessary for an irregular heartbeat.

3.  

   3. Seamless integration with life: Watches have been around since long, but smartwatches are those with increased functionality related to your health. Companies are collecting data and trying to understand what users interact with and how to make the interaction seamless.

4.  

   4. Tracking with a purpose: The aim of health and fitness tech companies is to offer personalized, functions and facilities via devices in order to reach the desired fitness and health related goals. Wearables are such devices that can track your pulse, your exercise, your food intake and even your sleep, but people don’t know what to do with that information. Here is where the companies come up with innovative offerings from the individual data and help users know what changes need to be done to stay fit and healthy.

5.  

   5. Partnership between IT and Health/Fitness Companies: If smart watch companies tie up or establish partnerships and create sophisticated mobile apps related to fitness for users. The apps will help users to keep track of their daily workouts, activities or sign up for aerobics, zomba or yoga classes and receive membership alerts. This would surely motivate the users and increase the sale of smartwatches.

6.  

   6. Integration with Healthcare Providers: With the increase of wearables, the consumer data associated with it is also on the rise. But with the introduction of new and cutting edge technology companies are improving analysis and accommodating huge data. This Data will become an important factor for the progress of Medicine and Healthcare Providers to come up with preventive healthcare techniques for the benefit of the masses.

7.  

   7. Discover the Awareness of your Behaviour: There is tremendous potential for health and fitness technologies to help people out by making them aware of their own behaviour, which is unknown to them. Typical behavioural patterns or stress levels, pressure, posture of the body, its weight and many other hidden factors if made aware to the consumers will have a huge impact on how they currently live and will inform them on what actions need to be taken to improve. As the human brain is not really capable of remembering all such details. It is the technology that can do this job. You just need an alert or a reminder to become aware of things, and then you are motivated to implement the change.

8.  

   8. Privacy Protection: People are gradually becoming aware of their health parameters and are interested in tracking them. They wish to have more and more control over third parties who are able to get to the consumers. People are open to sharing their data related to their health but yet want to be sure that its falling in secure hands. As tracking health and fitness data becomes common, there are some inevitable questions that will arise such as what variables employers and insurance companies can be given access to and under what circumstances. Companies that provide data security and control to users will surely gain a competitive advantage over those companies which provide unauthorized access to third parties.

9.  

   9. Perpetual Personal Trainers: People are busy in their own lives and they do not have the time or the willingness to invest in a personal trainer to achieve fitness goals. Even with a personal trainer limited gym activities can be monitored till the time you are with the trainer. What happens in the absence of the trainer? However, with the introduction of smartwatches, a personal trainer could be close to you at all times. Modern hi-tech apps and customized apps on smartwatches will facilitate a trend towards people having a personal trainer with them at all times to enforce their commitment towards their health goals.

 

Conclusion: Today, wearables are the smartest way forward. With increasing consumer data and its analysis, the technology companies are accepting it as a challenge, and working towards innovation in the health and fitness arena.