Once upon a time…
We ran with no other agenda but to stay fit. Fitness and keeping healthy were the only criterion involved in the simple morning run. The closest thing we came to cool gadgets were our uber cool touch screen phones that came with slick black velcro straps that attached to the arm giving us access to pumping music and our trusty old designer kicks from nike to adidas. One fought only to keep up with the trending neon colours & the allure of the global sneaker companies.
Fast forward from the days of yore to today…
Let’s take a moment to stop gazing at those walls of neon shoes to rotate our gaze to those line up of neon bands that are so taking over everyone’s life. Fitbit, Mifit, Xiaomi have all raged into the market, offering lifestyle solutions. The everyday run is no more just the average run. This everyday activity has taken on new meaning with the offer of counting those calories, mapping the route and tracking your steps / distance. Companies are clamouring to help you quantify your life. Walking to the grocer, running from the neighbourhood dogs or just tripping down those stairs, all play significant roles in the new perception of ‘healthy’ with a band that keeps track of everything.
Fast forward a tiny bit more…
How long before a consumer craves more from his gadget than just the number of steps he’s walked or the calories she burned over her workout. ‘Up until this point, wearable technology has been stuck in the information age. Our devices have counted our steps, measured our heart rates and brain waves, and tracked everything from our sleep habits to our breathing patterns.’ (http://bit.ly/1QCo99Y)
Wearables have the possibility to engage deeper with the user. The area of sports, for example, has the maximum capabilities. Imagine strapping your bulky phone to your arm and measuring your sport. Nope. Nope. A thousand nopes. But imagine a slim band strapped to your wrist that monitors your game closely the same way it currently monitor your lifestyle.
Wearables have opened the horizon, being non intrusive and ‘smart’. Their design has bought a fundamental change in the way we monitor, track and communicate our body stats. Generation 1 apps were about manually inputting stats to keep a track of them, whereas with the onslaught of wearables one can forget about physically tracking while the wearable does the monitoring while you focus deeper on the game. Imagine a coach whom you always wanted to train under, but lives miles away, has the opportunity to look at your data and gives you inputs and feedback about your game. This is the paradigm shift that wearables can bring about in the world of sports. Data collection and data analysis can be easily simplified with this simple band.
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