Wearable Computing – Classical Devices, E-Textiles & Interactive Skin

Wearable Computing

Miniature electronic devices worn under, with, or on top of clothing that remain operational while the user is on the move and provide always-on, direct access.

Classical Wearable Device

Traditional form factors such as smart glasses, smartwatches or body-worn projectors built with rigid electronics.

Always-on

A system property in which the wearable is continuously powered and ready for immediate interaction.

Context Awareness (in wearables)

Ability of a device to sense and react to the user’s environment, activities or physiological state.

Vannevar Bush – 1945 Vision

Early conceptualization of head-worn micro-cameras for augmenting scientific work, described in his essay “As We May Think.”

Electric Dress (1956)

Atsuko Tanaka’s illuminated garment, considered one of the earliest artistic electronic wearables.

Shoe Computer (1970)

Concealed footwear system used to predict roulette outcomes via toe-switch input and haptic output.

ActiveBadge (1989)

Infrared badge that tracked employee location in offices, unlocking doors and logging presence.

MIT Wearable Computing Group

Influential 1990s research team at MIT Media Lab led by Steve Mann exploring body-worn computers.

Smart Glasses

Eyewear integrating display, sensors and connectivity to present information in the user’s field of view.

Google Glass

2013 head-mounted display by Google featuring camera, touchpad, voice control and sensors.

Activity Detection with Google Glass

Technique using blink frequency and head motion to classify user activities (Ishimaru et al., 2014).

Jins Meme

Camera-less smart glasses focused on activity logging and health monitoring.

Vuzix M400

Android-based smart glasses with see-through OLED display, camera and touchpad.

Microsoft HoloLens 2

Mixed-reality headset with 52° field-of-view 3D display, integrated head/eye tracking and hand tracking.

Sixth Sense

2009 body-worn projector-camera system by Mistry & Maes enabling gestural interaction on surfaces.

Humane AI Pin

Laser-projecting wearable pin providing speech, touch and camera interaction for on-body output.

Smartwatch

Wrist-worn computer combining timekeeping with sensing, communication and touch display.

Hamilton Pulsar P1

1972 world’s first digital watch, precursor to modern smartwatches.

Seiko RC-1000

1984 watch with 2 KB RAM that synced with home computers to store notes and contacts.

OnHand PC / Seiko Ruputer

1998 smartwatch with 16-bit CPU, 128 KB RAM and 102×64 px LCD.

Samsung Galaxy Gear

2013 Android smartwatch featuring AMOLED display, camera and motion sensors.

Moto360

2014 circular Android Wear smartwatch with optical heart-rate sensor.

Apple Watch

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