Tag Archives: Wearable Tech

Futuristic Wearable Designs that are emerging as the top tech trends of 2021!

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Wearable designs make our lives easier and more efficient in multiple ways! From smartwatches, Fitbits to even wearable furniture, innovative wearable designs can be valuable additions to our daily lifestyles. And, not to mention sometimes they’re really fun to use and trendy to wear as well! Hence, we’ve curated a collection of wearable designs that are not only super easy to wear on your person, but also promise to make your everyday life easier, simpler, and effortless! Enjoy.

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Dani Clode’s Third Thumb project aims at exploring and expanding the possibilities of what we can do with additional powers… in this case, an extra thumb. With the aim of adding to human possibilities, rather than replacing what’s lost, the prosthetic has the potential to rapidly alter the way we live our lives. The thumb, 3D printed from a variant of Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU) called Ninjaflex, sits right beside your little finger. It’s connected to a smart bracelet that receives its commands via Bluetooth from the wearer’s foot. Pressure sensors are placed on the soles of the feet and any force you apply with your foot is perceived as a signal by the bracelet i.e., if you press down with one foot, the thumb flexes inwards, grasping whatever you’re holding. Clode says that the learning curve is rather minimal and people get used to the controls pretty quick. Watch the video to see one rather confident candidate shred away at a guitar with a Third Thumb!

The After You umbrella is a multipurpose product designed to save you from the rains and to help you carry stuff when the skies are clear! Anna, a student at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest, created this design as a part of her design course. The aim of the course is to completely redesign an everyday object – an umbrella in this case. The After You revolutionizes the humble umbrella in quite a few ways – the first is by making the design hands-free! One of the most tedious things about carrying the umbrella is the juggling act of holding onto your umbrella with one hand with the tons of stuff we carry in our hands. By wearing the product over your shoulders like a backpack, After You leave your hands free to answer back to that text or browse your phone. The next thing we love about this design is the foldable design – the five layers made from rigid polycarbonate layers fold and unfold to form a cocoon that keeps you protected.

Industrial designer SangWoon Kim has reimagined the traditional waist support belt as a smart wearable to protect the lumbar spine better. Basically, it functions like any standard belt to compress the waist and isolate our breathing patterns. The striking difference is the ability to tighten the belt automatically, depending on the intensity of the workout and the user’s breathing pattern. Kim calls it the BIND.CO belt and this workout accessory come in handy for any exercise mode and intensity. The innovation will be godsent for beginners who are still learning about the exact tightening of the belt needed for their workout. Thanks to the embedded sensors, the smart belt tightens during exercise and loosens at the time of rest between activities.

Mictic is creating a new relation between music and dance. This hand-worn wearable allows your body movements to be converted into musical symphonies. Simply put, Mictic converts your hand movements into digital signals that trigger virtual instruments within the Mictic smartphone app. The two wearables sit on your wrists, and their individual movements help the app understand how your hands are moving. First, you need to pair your bands with your smartphone and select the drum instrument within the Mictic app. Now beat your hands around in the air and the app plays back drum sounds as if you were sitting in front of a real drum kit. Similarly, select the guitar instrument and shred away in the air and the Mictic app generates a killer solo.

Once activated, EVE launches a 10-second alarm meant to discourage the attacker from continuing their assault and instantly calls the local police station, sending operators the location and live audio recordings of the attack. EVE follows a two-step activation process to launch the wristband’s emergency features. First, to unlock EVE and prepare it for activation, the user simply shakes their wrist repeatedly three to five times. Embedded inside the wristband, an accelerometer and gyroscope detect the shaking and rotation of the wrist, awakening the device and gearing it up for activation. Then, either by announcing previously recorded voice triggers or by placing pressure on the wristband’s sensors, the 110dB alarm sounds, and the police are called, sending live recordings of the assault to an emergency operator, along with the GPS location of the EVE user.

Designed by Yang Zhao, the odd-looking origami-inspired contraption dubbed ‘SharkMan’ is only for the bold ones to actually use in a shopping mall or maybe at the beach. It is still worth the experiment at home since it cocoons you in complete privacy, although you might look a little funny. The deformable soft furniture morphs into several different configurations based on your needs for a “me space” when things get too distracting. Whether you are reading a book, working on your laptop, or simply want to take a quick nap – the SharkMan is an odd-looking solution that makes the cut. You can use it while standing, sitting, or even lying down – as three of these configurations don’t reveal your face to the world – so you don’t have to worry about the embarrassing part of using SharkMan in public.

Crown, from Neurosity, helps to maintain your brain’s focus by measuring not only what triggers your focus, but also what sustains it. Eight EEG sensors fill out the Crown to track and quantify an individual’s brainwaves to better understand what retains focus and what introduces distraction. As the brainwaves are measured, the accompanying Neurosity Shift app connects to your Spotify account to play the most suitable music for your brain to hold onto that state of flow. Similar to Neurosity’s previous brain-sensing technology, the Notion 2, the Crown also minimizes any technological distractions like notifications or ringtones by automatically muting any prospective interruptions that could take away from your focus.

Bone conducting audio devices aren’t new, although the Sentien Audio is one of the first to bring AirPods-style features to it. The headset comfortably rests around your head and against the front of each ear. It sports a touch-sensitive panel that lets you tap and swipe to do things like skip tracks, play-pause music, increase-decrease volume, and even summon your phone’s voice assistant. Unlike AirPods and other TWS earphones, the Sentien Audio boasts of a whopping 24-hour battery, allowing you to practically wear it all day and go about listening to music, answering calls, or asking Google Assistant or Siri random questions without worrying about battery life. Coupled with that is a unique adjustable titanium headband that comfortably places the headset on your head in a way that lets you naturally go about your day without worrying about it falling off or causing discomfort.


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Acknowledging the mental stressors within the ICU, a team of designers created SOVA, an ICU medical aid device that tracks the patient’s health progress and allows the patient to communicate their needs by simply directing their eyes. Either before, during, or following their visit to the ICU, almost half of the patients who receive medical treatment experience some form of trauma or suffer from mental stressors that make it difficult to communicate their needs. SOVA is a medical device that tracks and registers early signs of physical or mental pain so that medical personnel within the ICU can provide the patient with proper treatment. While physical pain, insomnia, and anxiety are only a few of the stressors in the ICU, SOVA operates as a system to track these stressors for real-time support and treatment.

This wearable fitness tracker-looking ring is actually a mouse designed to be as lightweight as possible so there isn’t excess load on your joints. The ring mouse’s design works intuitively, it reacts to the movements of the fingertips and does not interfere with the natural movement of the wrist since it is a wearable ring. Due to its unique shape for a mouse, it makes the experience smoother while reducing the stress on your wrists as it won’t be awkwardly bent at an angle for hours! The ring has sensors that provide the functionality of a mouse such as ‘click’, ‘sweep’, ‘scroll’ through different gestures that are similar to how we use the trackpads on a laptop.

This wearable Air Conditioner cools you + lets you breathe cool air, making you summer ready!

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Summertime brings relentless heatwaves and the frustrating spells of chapping under the sun. Sure you can take shelter in the cozy confines of your home cooled down by the air conditioner, but in real-life situations, you’ll have to step out from time to time outside in the scorching heat. There are battery-powered portable AC’s that last for two hours on a single charge – but if you like something that can go on and on without the need to worry about the battery running dry in the middle of a meltdown spell, this creative wearable has got you covered.

Saiga is the result of a team project by the Royal College of Art & Imperial College London, Innovation Design Engineering students – Harry Barber, Kevin Chiam, Wei Haw Huang, and Nacho Vilanova. This wearable neck air conditioner makes use of conduction to cool down the area around the neck using the user’s own breath. So why did these mindful students design a prototype that needs very negligible external battery power? For a simple reason – the air conditioners are energy demanding and adversely affect the environment as they increase the environmental temperature and are also polluting in the long run. How one feels around the neck contributes a lot to the perception of environmental temperature, and the Saiga neck wearable does exactly that.

It provides cooling by conduction of air onto specific parts of the neck and breathing in cold air through the mouth further provides added relief when the temperature gets too hot – thereby improving the thermal comfort when in hot environments. The device works when sweat is detected – making it work in tandem with the body to feel comfortable when it is needed. The prototype version makes use of the Peltier chips (running at under 2W for a low power alternative) strategically placed around the neck area (back and the sides), and a phase-changing material that cools down the air when breathed through the mouthpiece. It is basically about cooling down the neck area rather than the whole environment to give the sensation of a perceived colder environment that it actually is!

Designer: Imperial College of London Students – Harry Barber, Kevin Chiam, Wei Haw Huang, Nacho Vilanova





This ring lets you control your personal data, to prevent tech companies from spying on you!

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The digital era is probably at its peak right now. From social media to virtual reality, we all have digital identities, and ever since the pandemic we have been living in our devices. This comes with its own set of pros and cons but one of the most popular complaints people have is about their data being misused. So how do we stop or regulate data mining and make people feel safe again? Argodesign attempts to answer that question with their wearable tech concept, the Me.Ring which basically helps you be in incognito mode in real life.

Me.Ring is essentially a connected switch that you wear on your finger and flipping it controls how you want to share your data. When you are okay with your data being collected (from your face, your location, or just about anything else), you switch it on. When you want to stay private, you switch it off. This conceptual ring lets you be a digital ninja by giving you control of your data so you can opt out of your actions being recorded/analyzed forever. “The ring almost acts as the keys to engage (or not) with society, to whatever degree you’re comfortable,” says Jenny Clark, associate creative director at Argodesign, who created the hardware mockup. A design like Me.Ring will require a robust software infrastructure and buy-in from the government + private companies to be able to fulfill its purpose. There is a lot of potential for making it an inclusive design that can serve sections of our demographic that require more monitoring.

In many ways, it is similar to the personal smart devices and gadgets we own with added controls and an integrated app that will let you choose your sharing settings. Me.Ring will use Bluetooth and other low-power wireless protocols that could communicate, not just with your phone, but with beacons in your environment such as smart turnstiles, sidewalks, cameras, and digital signs. The ring will be able to send signals to these points of access and sensors in your environment. It would clarify whether your data was collectible, which parts of your data were collectible, and for what purpose. “For private-sector entities interested in using or collecting your data will be allowed to send you offers,” says Jared Ficklin, chief technologist and partner at Argodesign. For example, if you are getting coffee at Starbucks and notice a beacon, maybe a restaurant analyst company could ask to record the next 10 places you went out to eat for a small payment or coupon.

There are a lot of benefits to sharing your data as well and can shape societies into smarter cities with infrastructure that has been designed to serve diverse communities. It would be a very convenient personal database and storage making it easy to share your contact details when you are networking professionally or your medical data when you sick or are traveling in a pandemic. The ring’s switch would activate a collection of those preferences and customize it to you. Me.Ring is your liaison and data broker to an invisible world of data trackers. It gives us a glimpse into what the future could look like for data management, privacy and existing between the duality of our online and offline worlds.

Design: Argodesign

Innovative headphone designs that let you zone out and immerse yourself in your musical experience!

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Once my headphones are in, the rest of the world is out. I scroll through my playlist and deep dive into my favorite musical tunes. And then I’m in my own little audio world, where everything is peaceful, my favorite singers are my best friends, and they just know the right things to say. If you’re a music fanatic as well, you know how important and sacred your personal music time can be, and how holy your relationship with your headphones is. After all, these are the resourceful little things that transport us into our beloved audio world. Having a pair of handy, innovative, and trendy headphones is a must-have nowadays, and we’ve covered a variety of them for you – from sustainable cork headphones to ones that purify the air for you. Headphones designs these days are at an all-time high, and I’m sure you can’t wait to introduce your ears to them!

These cork headphones are another great addition to that list and show us that gadgets can also go green – you would be surprised to know how much plastic goes into making a simple pair of headphones. Weighing only 64 grams  (0.14 lbs) these headphones are super light! Cork is a versatile material that is being explored to design sustainable products. It is non-allergic, resilient, sound insulating, moisture-proof, and soft to touch. If you are an everyday headphone user, you know that there is a lot of wear and tear that happens and instead of repairing, we usually just upgrade which increases our plastic consumption. Cork headphones are easy to repair and dismiss thanks to an assembly based on the compressibility of the material. There is no glue, no upholstery, no screws involved – just cork, simple electric parts, steel, and foam.

Designers Adam Wrigley, Francois Nguyen, Jungsoo Park, and Kebei Li created ‘UNUM’, (in their spare time by the way) and they consider it to be a catalyst in the future of personal audio. One look at UNUM and its design will leave you shocked. These headphones were designed to leave your ears completely exposed. Sporting an open-hoop structure, UNUM consists of two rings that seem to wrap around your ears. They dangle snugly around your ears, instead of fitting into your ear canals like the headphones we are so used to. As eccentric as the headphones may seem, the designers put a lot of thought into it. Designer Adam Wrigley says, “You see a lot of people walking around with headphones on, a lot of people biking with headphones on. And there’s always a question, ‘Can that person hear me?’ They are in their own little world.” And so Wrigley decided to build headphones that do the exact opposite of that!

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What’s better than one audio device? A two-in-one! No?! A three-in-one!! I’ve officially hit crazy with the Level x3 Headphones. Just like the Matryoshka dolls, these babies are one big bag of surprises. Designed to be your everything-audio solution, the Level X3 is a pair of in-ear earphones, that fit into headphones. Audio synchronization allows your headphones to continue what you were listening to on your earphones. The only way to top off that awesome idea is to step it up with the Cradle, a docking device for the headphones that not only charges them but acts as an all-in-one speaker.

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DE-MO, which stands for Detachable and Modular, is exactly that – an ecosystem of replaceable speakers, cables, and headband accessories that you can use to create an audio experience based on your needs. It has a minimal aesthetic and a sleek build so you’ll never look like Tarzan with the cords – DE-MO is built for the minimal millennial. DE-MO adapts to your needs so instead of having to keep a track of different headphones and cables for different situations, it offers a single set that can be expanded over time. It even gives you the option of adding a microphone and volume control clip – now you can finally go on that run and not be compelled to answer any phone calls!

With a design fit for the aggressively competitive gamer, the ASUS ROG Strix Pro 7.1 may just be the baddest set of headphones ever designed. These conceptual cans come with an edgy, don’t-mess-with-me demeanor characterized by sharp lines and facets, and what may just be the most menacing use of lighting I’ve seen. Housed around the drivers are two LED rings (one on each ear). When the headphones are worn, they give you a warm halo around the side of your head, making you almost look like a boss yourself. Take the headphones off and the two halos become almost like a pair of hawk-like eyes that stare into your soul.

Say hello to the Air-Purifying Headphones. Armed with around-ear cups on both sides, and a dual-headband design on the top, the Air-Purifying Headphones have a unique way of combining air-filtering with audio-playback. The upper headband swivels forward to cover the face and features the iconic bladeless-fan-style form that helps route air directly to the nose and mouth. The headphones house a powerful motor and filter located within the left and right cups, drawing air from the grilles on the outside and channeling them through and out of the headband’s air-outlets. According to the patent, the purifying headphones would feature propellers that spin at 12,000 rpm and draw in 1.4 liters of air per second each to filter particles like dust and bacteria. A key requirement of the motors would be to function quietly, allowing the headphones to offer great audio playback too.

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Titled the SoundCube, Eric Guack’s concept headphones for Lenovo literally come with a hexagonal design. Yes, the cups are hexagons too! The boxy, yet out-of-the-box approach to headphones makes them stand out, while the cube shape definitely helps it stand out from the other circular or elliptical headphone designs. The headphones are pretty straightforward. They come with an on-off switch and work both wirelessly or with an aux-cable. They even charge using contact-pins at the base, which means no ugly USB ports… just a clean, eye-catching design, and good sound quality that’s expected from a company like Lenovo!

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Using contour lines to evoke dynamism/athleticism and even relating to radiating waves of music, the Nike Facet headphones concept looks and feels like it’s just bursting with positive energy. The wireless headphones borrow color combos and even basic shapes from Nike’s Apple Watch variant, making them fit perfectly into Nike’s product catalog. The headphones come in beautiful pearlescent metallic finishes that change color depending on how you look at them. They even sport a 3D-printed contour-line texture on the opposite side of the earpieces, along with the Nike logo.

The ATH-AWKT Audiophile headphones are meant for design-minded audiophiles because they come with Audio-Technica’s superior sound and a sleek unconventional aesthetic thanks to the Japanese Kokutan (striped ebony) build. The interesting part is that the construction process is almost the same as what you will find in the manufacturing of woodwind instruments and pianos – kind of like a full-circle moment for music! The beauty of the wood will only deepen with age and no two headphones will be alike as the natural grain texture is retained in each of them. These beautiful headphones are made to emphasize the suppression of resonance and natural sound reproduction while balancing the highs, lows, and mid-tones to produce high-quality sound.

The AudiBall is a Bluetooth headphone that transforms into an impressive spherical smart speaker, with in-built Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant capabilities. Inspired by the techniques used for origami, this compact and portable headphone is designed to fit into just about any space. Being a practical device, it is waterproof, dust-proof, and durable. Designer Vedang Kulkarni has kept in mind the key aspects of functionality and transformation. Needless to say, all controls are intuitively placed, so that you can access and adjust them easily. Audiball is your personal headphone and a smart speaker on the go. The telescopic headband is stylish and looks very chic as an accent in the speaker mode. Features include active noise-canceling technology for a better listening experience.

Sony’s wearable, pocket-sized air conditioner is finally available for sale!

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Summer is not for everyone – sure it is nice when you are at the beach but is it nice to feel like you are being roasted like a turkey when its not Thanksgiving? I personally thrive in the snow but keeping on brand with being unprecedented like 2020, I have found myself in lockdown in India which means I am currently dealing with a hot, humid, tropical climate and it feels like I am an iPhone on 1% battery. What people like me need is Sony’s Reon Pocket air conditioner, which is FINALLY on sale, to keep us cool, calm, and collected!

A portable, wearable, air conditioner is no more a thing of futuristic tv shows. The Reon Pocket is a smartphone-controlled personal gadget that was designed to be compact and cool. It works using thermoelectric cooling and can cool the user’s body temperature by 13 degrees celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit) and raise your temperature by about 8 degrees Celsius (about 14 degrees Fahrenheit). Reon sits on the base of your neck in a special undershirt designed for it. It uses the Peltier effect which means a temperature difference is created by applying a voltage between two electrodes connected to a sample of semiconductor material. The heat is absorbed or emitted when you pass an electrical current across a junction to either lower your temperature or increase it without bulk or noise.

It is sleek, minimal and comfortable as a piece of wearable tech. Like any smart device of our times, Reon’s functions can be controlled via Bluetooth. Set to the desired temperature using the mobile app which also features an automatic mode. It only weighs 85 grams and can be charged with the common USB-C port. The only downside is that the battery lasts for just two hours on a single charge but that is enough time for you to run all errands or enjoy a picnic before you start to melt.

Designer: Sony

Click Here to Buy Now!

3D print this NASA wearable that prevents you from touching your face!

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The pandemic COVID-19 is still plaguing our world and that means we still need to make sure we don’t touch our faces, wear masks, wash our hands. We don’t even realize that we touch our face up to 2000 times a day which is a fundamental behavior of our species to self-soothe according to psychologists. Changing habits is hard enough already, and changing inherent habits while we adjust to bigger life changes might sound near impossible. So NASA has designed Pulse, a DIY wearable necklace that warns you when you are about to touch your face.

NASA isn’t selling these directly, but Jet Propulsion Laboratory has made the 3D-printed concept available as an open-source project so anyone can make this smart wearable for their own health and safety. It works on a simple mechanism – the necklace has a sensor that detects when the user lifts their hands towards their face and it will vibrate to warn them using power from a common button battery. This vibration is a reminder for the user to not touch their face and soon establishes the muscle memory required to turn this into a new behavioral pattern. All the necessary STL files, the list of the parts you’ll need, and the assembly instructions have been made freely available for anyone to make these. Apart from the 3D printer and having the knowledge of basic electrical DIY skills, all the components are easy to source and if you want to learn then YouTube is always there as a resource.

This isn’t a 100% prevention but an aid that goes along with masks, sanitizers, regular hand-washing, and staying home to minimize your chance of contracting the virus to as low as you possibly can. Please wear masks when you go out in public for essential errands or even a stroll, and try to use reusable cloth masks so that health professionals and workers on the frontline can get the priority for disposable PPE which is still in short supply. As Batman said, “I don’t wear a mask to protect myself, I wear it to protect those around me.”

Designers: NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratory

This emotion-controlling wearable gives you Black Mirror + Iron Man feels

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People will usually ask you what are you wearing or what are you eating, but can you imagine being asked what emotion have you picked today? Because if you are wearing Hapbee you can actually answer that odd yet interesting question. Hapbee is the world’s first wearable that lets you feel calm, alert, focused, relaxed or sleepy on command! Will it be revolutionary or just take us one step closer to becoming androids? One user literally said he felt like Iron Man and I am here for it.

While it may seem like a device straight out of a Black Mirror episode, Hapbee (which comes from the word ‘happy’) actually wants to make life easier by giving us the capability to balance and control our emotions. There are 15 years of research and development that have gone into designing Hapbee with patented technology. It uses electromagnetic frequencies that are even lower than your phone’s to better your mental health without causing any permanent changes to who you really are. The device is actually a boon if you look at it from a psychological lens. It can reduce stress, help you sleep better and be more productive at work – three things the entire world could use to deal with the pandemic without increasing their load of emotional trauma. There are many people dealing with high-level anxiety, depression, bipolar disorders for whom coping with the pandemic can be paralyzing and Hapbee can be a relief.

“It’ll allow you to experience the feelings and sensations you desire almost instantly, without ingesting any harmful substances or chemicals while having the ability to return to your normal baseline state within a matter of minutes,” says the team behind Hapbee. Think of it as a playlist for your emotions. The device syncs to your smartphone so you can control it with an app. The physical product is lightweight enough to wear as an accessory around your neck or as a headband, it is visually subtle and should blend with your style. In a world after COVID-19 we will all have to work a little harder on caring for our mental health to get over this big life change, devices like Hapbee can truly change the game. Now I know why the user felt like Iron Man, it is the subtle breathing-like glow from the logo…good thing it has no shrapnel! Cue song – because I’m Hapbeeeeee.

Designer: Hapbee

Xiaomi’s Mi Watch Costs Just $185 but Packs In Features

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Xiaomi just announced its take on the Apple Watch, and it is likely to infuriate a lot of Cupertino executives. Xiaomi’s Mi Watch looks eerily similar to the Apple Watch but costs just $185. The smartwatch is available in the Chinese market and comes with a square body, button and a crown. With a 1.78-inch […]

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Google Announces Intention to Launch Pixel Watch

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Google has just announced its wish to launch its own smart watch, which has been long rumored. At the yearly Made By Google event, in which Google showcases its hardware achievements, the company announced on the stage that the watch has been developed by the team which also designed the Pixel 4, PixelBook, and other […]

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Flow Announces Headsets that Treat Depression

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Flow Neuroscience has just announced headsets that treat depression, taking wearable tech to a new level. This medically approved headset makes use of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to zap your brain tissue into feeling better. The headset costs £399 in the UK and is non-invasive. All you need to do is to wear it […]

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