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.
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.
