Do you love the way technology improves your life, but you can’t live without jewellery? You’ll be happy to know that the fashion industry married the tech industry so that today you can wear a ring that unlocks your phone or calls your friend.
Remember that fancy bracelet you were checking out in the shop window the other day? That thing can actually track your steps and burnt calories.
If you take a better look around you, almost everyone you know is wearing the Apple Watch or some other smart gadget around their wrist.
Wearable technology is all around us, as accessories, embedded in clothing, or even tattooed on the skin. But what does it do and does it differ from smart jewellery?
Different Types of Wearables for Every Taste and Need
Smartwatches, fitness trackers, sports watches, hearables—these are all wearables that turn into powerful tracking devices when connected to your phone. There are many categories of wearables that you can choose from to improve your everyday style and keep track of your health.
While some seem a little robust, others are beautifully designed. If you love being active and are eager to go running after work, you’ll enjoy the usefulness of wearables.
Wrist-Worn Wearables
We’ve mentioned the Apple Watch already, and there are many others on the market, but the purpose is the same—they connect with your phone and can track and collect different data.
Aside from smartwatches that are basically a mini smartphone and sports watch that provide you with super-advanced metrics, fitness trackers are the simpler version of the two.
Head Wearables
Head-mounted displays, like Oculus Rift, will soon be replaced by an improved version of sunglasses. If you’re looking to have an augmented reality device, you might want to opt for smart glasses.
These can provide you with instant information on restaurants while you’re walking downtown, current weather forecast, or show you directions. What a time to be alive, huh?
Hearables
Another category of wearables—hearables—are precisely what their name suggests. You can use them to listen to music, since they serve as wireless earphones, or have quick access to Siri, Alexa, or Google voice assistant.
Other types of hearables can be used as real-time translation tools, and some are even combined with smart sunglasses to enable access to AR and smart assistants at the same time. The most popular example of hearables is Apple’s AirPods.
Smart Jewellery as a Fashion Statement
If you’re a person who prefers more subtle accessories but still wants to wear smart tech, smart jewellery might be the thing for you. Smart gadgets are shrinking, and it was only a matter of time before we’d be wearing them around our fingers, literally.
NFC Ring
It’s time to put a ring on it! The newest type of smart rings that use the near-field communication technology, or sensors, can unlock your phone or your smart door lock, call a contact from your list, connect your device to the internet, all while sitting beautifully on your finger.
Other rings use the sensors and can collect your data similarly to smartwatches. Most of them can sync with your phone via Bluetooth.
Still, there are some limitations when it comes to the collected data. Some rings can only go as far as tracking your sleep and pulse and are more expensive, while those with NFC technology are only used for unlocking devices and are way cheaper. The NFC rings need to be used very close to your device in order to work.
Necklaces and Bracelets
A smart necklace is another accessory that you can use to track your daily activity, although it’s not recommended to wear it to bed because it might wrap around your neck. The current leader in the market is Bellabeat. There’s also an app for your phone that you should use to sync the devices.
Bellabeat’s leaf-shaped device can track stress levels, meditation, and menstrual cycle. Your stats will adjust the more you use it and become more accurate over time. Bellabeat’s leaf can also be placed on a bracelet for easier sleep cycle tracking.
Conclusion
It appears that today’s wearables and smart jewellery markets have something for everyone. The only difference between wearables and smart jewellery is in the amount of data they can collect and store, where regular wearables track and store way more data than smart jewellery.
Still, thanks to the newest advancements in technology, you can have a stylish wearable or a lovely smart jewellery device, depending on your personal style.
When it comes to data collection and storage, it’s only a matter of time before smart jewellery becomes capable of collecting more essential datasets. The collected data may eventually be combined with artificial intelligence and used by doctors to track our overall health.
