Can the shirt you are wearing tell your heart beat and breathing rate? Probably not, but some types innovative clothing can indeed tell wearers important information about their health. T-shirts made by a Canadian company, Omsignal, have sensors that pick up information about health indicators, including how many calories are burned along with the wearer’s stress level.
Wearable technology is an innovative, and growing industry. Going beyond devices such as fitness bands, heart monitors, and other fitness trackers, wearable technology can now be embedded directly into textiles using biometric material. Uses for the materials range from sports and health-monitoring, to making wearable computerized clothing for soldiers. And, wouldn’t it be nice if our clothes could sense when we need food and drink in order to stay healthy, and have the order placed before we even arrive home from the gym?
Group Activities and Discussion Questions:
- Poll students: how many monitor their workouts or health using fitness bands or applications?
- Discuss the barriers and challenges to adopting wearable technology. How can these barriers be overcome?
- View wearable apparel and see it in action at: http://www.omsignal.com/
- For wearable technology products, what distribution channels are used now? Divide students into teams. Have each team draw a flow chart for the distribution of the product.
Source: New York Times, other news sources
