Cisco estimates that 50 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020 and wearable technology is expected to play a large part in this growth of the “Internet of Things”, or IoT. As consumers, we expect wearables to improve our daily experiences and generally make our lives easier and better by unobtrusively and conveniently sensing, analysing, monitoring and tracking. These tiny connected devices are intended to consume very little power while collecting massive amounts of data.
A notable entrant was Google Glass, a higher end wearable technology that can capture videos, browse the internet and bring an augmented reality component allowing users to interact with the environment around them. Google Glass seemed to be innovative and ahead of its time but from a hardware and software perspective, even these wearables have a long way to go to meet the performance of even the current technology: our smartphones.
With Google’s recent decision to halt sales of the current model of Glass and reorganize the Glass team, it’s clear Google also saw the need for change.
In order to achieve the performance needed for wearables to in fact be wearable, and be capable of being the next wave in the IoT, significant technological innovation will be required. The companies that are ahead in this innovation, from both technological and IP perspectives, will be the ones to drive success in the near future.
TechInsights and eSoftThings recently looked to benchmark the power and thermal performance of three sets of smart glasses, including Google Glass, Vuzix M100 and AR Glasses by Optinvent. Although the initial objective of the study was to compare the performance results to each other, what really stood out was how the glasses stacked up against the power performance of a smartphone.
This story was originally published on EE Times. To read the rest of the article, please go to EE Times.