By India Toomey
1. Ultimate Gameplay
First things first: after the last two years, it is time to lighten the mood. Ever more engaging gaming is being developed, always with the aim to draw the player more concretely into the world of the game. Sony unveiled the details of its next generation virtual reality console for the PlayStation 5 at CES 2022. The new console will come with an enhanced eye-tracking feature, which detects the motion of users’ eyes. Now, instead of fully turning their heads to take in surroundings, players can glance from side to side for more realistic input for the game character. This creates a more immersive experience, as the player can act intuitively, as they would in reality, a heightened emotional response and enhanced expression that provide a new level of realism in gaming.
Virtual reality circles back round to reality
When the games are over, virtual reality can also be used to manage meetings from great distances without sacrificing the advantages of face-to-face meetings.
Panasonic subsidiary, Shiftall, displayed a range of new products at CES 2022 designed to help users immerse themselves in the metaverse – a three-dimensional digital space that allows users to communicate using avatars.
It announced three new products: the MeganeX VR headset; the Pebble Feel metaverse-linked wearable heating and cooling device; and the mutalk microphone that preserves users’ voices for the metaverse while preventing sound from leaking into the surroundings.
2. Majestic Masks
From “mascne” to foggy glasses, masks have been difficult to adjust to, but they hold the potential for the fashion-savvy to step up their game. The next advances in tech are turning masks into statement pieces. Razer debuted a base model and pro version of its Zephyr mask this year. The masks feature two-way air filters and fans (goodbye mascne), plus colourful lights and voice amplification that can be controlled via the linked app. Covid secure and sustainable, it also comes with a transparent design to enable lip-reading and greater sociability.
3. No more lost property
Targus has developed a bag that not only can be tracked if it goes missing but can also be used to track the phone it is connected to. If the user can’t find their phone, they can simply press a button on the backpack that pings the phone, sending an alert of its location. Continuing a running trend of sustainability for this line, the company claims the bag is made from 26 plastic bottles.
4. Smart Jewellery
What would a wearable article be without a fitness tracker? Stepping it up from watches is the Circular Ring. Launched at CES 2022, this ring analyzes the wearer’s bio-signals 24/7 to help keep track of health trends. By combining red light with infra red light, it can monitor blood oxygenation and heart rate to a clinical grade.
Maintaining a precise balance of oxygen-saturated blood is vital to overall health. Too much or too little can be damaging; a normal reading is typically between 94 and 100 percent. This is a valuable metric to monitor, as it is closely related to a lot of respiratory conditions (shortness of breath, asthma, sleep apnea, and more). Monitoring blood oxygen level can help with many things, from detection and prevention of various illnesses, to determining if treatments are working, to allowing the adventurous climber to acclimatize to high altitudes. With this ring, users can learn what parameters impact their health and how it correlates with their days.
5. Postureshirt
As back, neck or shoulder pain will affect 80% of adults in their lifetime, this area of wearables is not to be ignored. Back pain is most commonly caused by poor seated posture, particularly in an age of desk jobs. Posture360 have developed an everyday shirt ergonomically designed to gently pull back the shoulders of the wearer, giving subtle reminders to sit up straight. As all chairs are not created equal, the smart shirt can be calibrated specifically with a chair in mind, be it the office or the car seat for a long drive.
IDTechEx‘s report ‘Wearable Technology Forecasts 2021-2031’ analyses technology designed not only for consumers to measure the quality of their own sleep, but also for professional medical applications, sportswear, and more, looking at design, efficacy, and future markets, predicting that the industry will be worth over $138bn by 2025. For more information on this report and related research, please visit www.IDTechEx.com/wearables.
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