Exploding wearables market
The lifelogging movement is closely intertwined with a market trend that is growing swiftly – the use of wearable technology. Wearable technology has existed since a long time ago and apparently has its roots in the casino. It has come a long way and has since been developed in all shapes and functions, whether in the form of fitness trackers, smart watches or wearable cameras. Moreover, the core components of wearable tech are also becoming even more flexible with the possible development of thread-like batteries powering wearable tech in future. With these innovations that are further propagated by tech giants jumping on the bandwagon of wearables, it is no wonder that the wearable tech market is estimated to worth $8.36 billion by 2018. Besides being used for personal tracking or the quantified self, these devices can also be used collectively in the workplace. This could be pretty difficult to imagine, isn’t it? Therefore today, we would like to help you paint a picture of the futuristic workplace in a world of wearables.
Read more: Is the Wearable Market About to Explode? and Forget the Quantified Self. We Need to Build the Quantified Us
Image credited to Ian Allen | Wired
That cuppa in the morning!
It is 9am on Monday morning. You belong to the group who believes that life does not begin until after coffee or tea. You head over to your office’s coffee machine and hit that button. That cup of brewing hot coffee or tea is just what you needed to get your brain ticking. Single shot espresso or double? Should I have that cup right now to optimise productivity? Questions questions questions, just before you hit those buttons. To answer them all, Jawbone has launched a new lifelogging tool – the Jawbone UP coffee – which reveals just how your body reacts to caffeine. Simply log for 3 days to see how you compare with other drinkers or for 7 days to reveal your Caffeine Persona. This tool could be what you need to maximise your productivity at work or to remind your colleagues to wait for 45 more minutes before they hit that next cup! At your wish, perhaps you could also send that data to your boss to hint for a cup of strong aromatic coffee from that favourite coffee chain down the road when the coffee machine is out of order (;
Image credited to Jawbone UP
Working together
With wearable tech boasting to boost productivity by almost 10 percent, it is no wonder that companies and individuals alike are slowing opting into the use of wearable tech in the workplace. After all, who doesn’t like shorter work hours as a result of being productive? In the picture above, you would find a representation of a study, in which 80 workers were randomly assigned three wearable devices over three weeks; the Lumo Back, which monitors your posture, the NeuroSky, a headset which uses sensors to translate brain activity into action, and GeneActiv, a watch-style wristband that gathers motion data. The result? When wearing the devices, worker productivity has been said to increase by 8.5 percent, while job satisfaction levels rose by 3.5 percent. Are you up for this?
Read more: Wearables can boost employee productivity by almost 10pc
Image credited to The Telegraph
Lunch time workout-mania!
Instead of going for desserts after lunch to maximise that one hour lunch break that you have, maybe this would motivate you to get fit; co-workers becoming competitors in the race to fitness and health. As part of The Outside View’s Health, Wealth and Happiness programme, which could be likened to the company’s version of Google’s 20% time (where engineers are given an opportunity to work on side projects), employees of The Outside View are required to download a variety of smartphone apps that help them to track everything from the amount of time they sleep, the distance they walk or run, what they eat, how much time they spend sitting at their desk and even their ‘happiness’ levels. After all, a happy customer starts from a happy employee, so the return on investment in health and happiness could be great for both the company and the individual.
Read more: These companies are tracking the fitness of their employees and Quantified Self? How About a Quantified Workplace?
Image credited to The Outside View
Stress begins building up
The clock is ticking. That report for the client is due in just 2 hours and is hardly completed. Even though exercising a few hours ago helped you to relieve stress, the deadline is causing you to yearn for that stick of cigarette you’ve grown to be reliant on. You need a smoke break. Or at least that’s what you think and what a particular company is determined to help you kick away. The Chrono Therapeutics’ SmartStop wearable is intended to help smokers leave cigarettes behind. Here’s how it works – the SmartStop is equipped with a transdermal nicotine delivery system that allows for a differential, timed-release of nicotine. This helps to automatically offset the most powerful cravings that any smoker might have and gradually helps him/her to quit smoking altogether. Would you give it a try?
Read more: Chrono Raises $32M to Make Smart Nicotine Patch
Image credited to Fox Business
Meeting minutes
Just recently, Salesforce.com, a CRM and cloud giant has launched the Salesforce Wear, which is a developer program that focuses on wearables for the enterprise. As part of this, the company has created six end-to-end applications for six wearable devices, including an app for the Samsung Gear that allows users to check who is attending a meeting and information about attendees. These six apps are to work together to provide solutions for problems currently faced in the workplace and hopefully help us all work smarter. Yay or nay?
Read more: Salesforce.com Wear launched for wearable app developers and The Wearable Era Is Here: Implications For The Future Workplace
Image credited to The Selwyn Foundation
Out of the office
Concluding the day could mean retail therapy for some, or an extra job at the local retail store. Whether you belong to the first or second group of people, BizTech believes that the first stop for wearables in businesses will arrive in the retail stores. This could mean equipping retail staff with wearables so that they can keep their hands free to assist customers better. Yet, be it in retail stores or offices, whether wearables will be introduced in the workplace on a larger scale than today will still have to depend on three factors according to Forbes – designing the workplace for wearables, not waiting for an industry-wide standardization, and being able to communicate openly about privacy and security. What else do you think needs to be done before wearables are fully integrated and ready for the workplace?
Read more: What Does Wearable Tech Mean for Businesses? and Why Wearable Tech Will Be as Big as the Smartphone
Image credited to Viral Heat
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