The crux of my discontent thus far lies in the relationship between the function of the tech and its wearability – namely, is the wearability essential to the tech’s function, or incidental to it?
To dissect that question a bit further, it’s important to note that both essentially and incidentally wearable technologies have existed for many years. A pacemaker (though worn inside the body) is essentially wearable, in that it exists purely to be worn and would serve no actual purpose if not. Watches (even the dumb kind) are incidentally wearable in that strapping the time to one’s wrist is convenient certainly, but not crucial.
As it stands right now, only health-related technologies fall into an “essentially wearable” category, and, let’s be honest – for the most part they’re not sexy. Activity trackers are meeting a comfortably growing demand in an apparently not-so-niche market, but they serve a very specific purpose and function as a certain kind of desirable status symbol in our increasingly health-conscious world.
On the topic of “incidentally wearable” technologies, those nice-to-haves on one’s person, there are other, thornier, issues at stake.
Function is only one [miniscule] reason we accessorize Anyone who knows me even a little knows that I love accessories. I’m a prolific shoe shopper; I’ve been collecting jewelry for years and my coat collection regularly makes my husband cringe. Sometimes, on a particularly cold winter day or when my feet hurt, function influences my wardrobe, but it never governs my choices completely – nor will it ever. So with my technology as with my precious metals, if it doesn’t speak to me aesthetically, I will not wear it. Wearables get no slack from me for difficulty with battery technology or engineering challenges.
The body offers valuable, and limited, real estate. Considering that the average person will likely wear no more than one watch, or a few bracelets, a few rings (max) and maybe one necklace, wearable tech companies are fighting for a scarce resource: space. The wearables industry today is, for the most part, a zero sum game. One company that wins me as a customer means that I will have to bump another accessory, tech or not. That would be a big win in the accessory category as a space where success is often a function of myriad consumer options.
Every day is a big ask. Bearing in mind that the best technology is meant to become indispensible, widespread adoption of a specific wearable would mean wearing it every single day. That’s a big deal. The accessories I never take off right now include: my wedding ring, a pinky ring that belonged to my mother and an amber ring I’ve been wearing since college, oh, and my glasses – so I can see. That’s it; sentiment, sentiment, sentiment and function rule. If I’m meant to wear something every day, it better be beautiful, indispensably functional and fit right in with all the other things I already love and wear daily. That’s no small task.