The Future of Wearables & Wireless Charging In Fitness

March 24th, 2016

When most people think of ‘wearables,’ the first picture that comes to mind it usually a type if fitness tracker. It’s no wonder why. Even though mass adoption of wearable tech is still a bit of a ways off, around 20% of the U.S. market still claims to own some type of smartwatch or fitness tracker, with Fitbit alone selling over 10.9 billion devices in 2014 for a total revenue of $745 million. Even so, most sports brands are racing into the fitness activity tracking scene, with Nike, UnderArmour, Adidas, and more announcing their own versions of wearable fitness tracking devices. Some are even going beyond the typical fitness band, with activity trackers being added to shoes, gym clothes, sports bras, and more!

Wearables & Wireless Charging for Fitness

OMBra is a sports bra with a built-in fitness activity tracker

What makes fitness and wellness trackers so unique is not only their ability track your steps or calories burnt, it’s their ability to analyze your fitness data and learn from it. Having an activity tracker on your wrist to constantly analyze your movements and data not only provides you important personal information about yourself and your body, but also for insurance companies, hospitals, and even employers!

 

Here are just a few of the ways wearables are changing the fitness space:

 Personalized Fitness & Health

The idea of having a wearable fitness tracker is about much more than just counting your steps or tracking the amount of calories burnt. It’s about creating a personalized ecosystem of fitness engagement and the ability to monitor your body 24/7. By tracking your steps, calories burnt, calorie intake, heart-rate, sleep patterns, and more, activity trackers have the potential to provide you with individually tailored goals in order to motivate you and keep you, or even your loved ones on target!

 
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For example, LeapBand is a wearable activity tracker for children to help fight childhood obesity. In addition to tracking their activities, it motivates your kids to get moving by giving them daily activity challenges, games, quizzes…and even rewards them for meeting their daily goals. The idea is to keep the kids moving and to stimulate their activity.

Wearables & Wireless Charging for Fitness

LeapBand is a kids activity tracker that encourages active play and healthy habits (Photo: leapfrog.com)

Healthcare & Insurance

As activity trackers begin to integrate into various aspects of our lives, doctors and other health care professionals can use this information to assess your physical and mental wellbeing. As opposed to having a yearly checkup, imagine that your doctors will simply be able to analyze the data collected in your activity tracker

With the rising cost of healthcare, many believe that wearable tech is also a great way to determine cost of health insurance premiums. Some insurance companies even started offering discounts on premiums or rewards if certain goals were met by their activity trackers. For example, Oscar, a New York insurance company offered a $1 credit in Amazon vouchers to customers for each time they hit their goals, while CSS Insurance in Switzerland launched a pilot project with 2000 volunteers last July to analyze whether fitness trackers could be used by insurance companies for individuals’ needs.

 

Improving Life & Sleep Quality

Did you know that fitness trackers can even determine your quality of sleep based on your movements? For example, the Fitbit Force even includes a “sleep mode,” which analyzes how many hours you slept or how many times you woke up during the night. Other trackers go even further. For example, Fatigue Science’s RedEyeBand is a bracelet that a person can wear in order to measure sleep statistics, which are then translated into actionable reports for coaches to analyze sleep fatigue in sports athletes. Other trackers, such as the UP3 by Jawbone analyze your sleep information into “light” or “deep” stages, with an accompanying app to give you information and tips on how to improve your sleeping habits.

Wearables & Wireless Charging for Fitness

FatigueScience’s RedEyeBand provides sleep and fatigue analytics for sports teams.

 WIRELESS CHARGING FOR FITNESS WEARABLES

With time, fitness trackers are becoming smaller and more innovative- giving way to a new user experience. Yet in order to succeed, consumers must feel that this technology is not obstructing their daily lives and providing true value to their daily activities. As the ecosystem of wearables in fitness becomes more integrated into our daily lives, with more devices interoperable with one another to track our fitness engagement, we need a simple wireless charging solution.

Wearables & Wireless Charging for Fitness

An example of Humavox’s wireless charging station for charging on-the-go

Humavox’s ETERNA wireless charging platform is a minimal-size solution with a tiny wireless charging receiver that allows for effective integration within the device. This gives users the ability to comfortably charge without the hassle of dealing with cords. Moreover, ETERNA supports the waterproof solution necessary with sensor technology by eliminating the need for a USB port altogether. The elimination of a USB ports prevents any possible malfunction of the device with unwanted water penetration, as well as allows the integration of additional underwater features. This allows users to charge without noticing…even when on-the-go!

 

Read more about our wireless charging solutions for fitness activity trackers