This year’s crop of wearable technology is here to, if you’ll excuse my horrible poetry skills, provide data flow on the go and protect us from head to toe. Look for these five innovative wearables designed to help monitor fitness, make any space sound like a symphony hall, protect workers, and turn any ho-hum office space into a computer lab.
GARMIN: epix Pro (Gen 2)
This smartwatch ($899) is a fitness junkie’s dream. With up to 16 days’ worth of battery life, built-in flashlight and multi-band GPS for exploration in dark places, bold amoled display, advanced health and wellness features, and a lot of training metrics (complete with recovery insights), this smartwatch not only keeps track of fitness effort over time, it also may save a life. Sensors in the watch detect heart rhythm and can diagnose atrial fibrillation.
XREAL: AIR 2 ULTRA
Sure, the Apple Vision Pro is cool, but some may be ready for a more comfortable, more affordable pair of mixed reality glasses. App developers will appreciate the Xreal Air2 Ultra ($699), not only for their lightweight, high-quality titanium frames, but also for the vivid, Micro-OLED panels with 1080p picture per eye and 6DoF (6 degrees of freedom) spatial and responsive hand tracking to switch between apps with ease. It packs a punch with its 52-degree field of view (FOV) and 42-pixel-per-degree sharpness, which is great for spatial computing and multitasking.
PROXGY: SmartHat
This next-level industrial helmet may seem like an odd entry in a pharma marketing article, but we can’t deny this helmet’s lifesaving attributes. This hardhat ($999) is packed with features: real time tracking, health monitoring (heart rate, body temperature, and blood oxygen level), communication options, environmental sensors, 360-degree video, 4G/5G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and the outer ABS shell is Type-1, Class C Rated, meaning it protects from falling objects but is not rated for electrical hazards. It detects 14 different flammables and 3 toxic gasses. A haptic proximity sensor notifies wearers of overhead hazards. This year, it was honored at CES with an innovation award.
SAMSUNG: GALAXY RING
Fitness buffs—and those who’d love to improve their health—will find the Samsung Galaxy Ring (Approx. $300) has lots of benefits. Weighing in at four little grams, this ring keeps tabs on health. It counts steps, tracks heart rate and blood pressure, monitors sleep, and provides fertility tracking. In addition, it can handle contactless payments, control audio levels, and more. With a battery life of 5-9 days, this ring gives continuous health information week in and week out. Look for the ring late summer 2024, along with the Galaxy 7 watch.
JABRA: Elite 8 Active
The Jabra Elite 8 Active ($199) earbuds give users an alternative to the pricier Bose QuietComfort headphones. Hailed by the company as “the world’s toughest earbuds”, these tiny tech solutions are
waterproof, sweatproof, and built to withstand extremes. They’re also designed with Jabra ShakeGrip™ technology that keeps them in-ear, where they reward wearers with quality sound, Adaptive Hybrid Active Noise Cancellation, and 6-Mic call technology that knows to amplify your voice when in noisy or public places.
