From their inception, it was immediately obvious that wearables had immense potential to improve how we interact with medical apps. These sleek and stylish devices could not only make technology more widely accessible, but they could also allow us to understand our own health in a more intimate, digestible way. Dogtown Media has always striven to keep up and innovate with the latest developments in wearable technology. That’s why we’re so excited and honored to announce that we’ve recognized as a top wearable app developer of 2020 by TopDevelopers.co!

Since we opened our doors in 2011, the wearables market has witnessed unprecedented growth. The explosive popularity of these devices has led to countless advancements which now present endless opportunities for augmenting preventative medicine. With that said, it’s safe to say that the days of viewing wearables as mere fitness trackers are over — this technology can give you a comprehensive picture of your health that wasn’t possible only a few years ago.

Wearables unlock insights that allow anyone to take better control of their health. They can also elucidate better ways for medical experts to manage maladies. It’s no exaggeration to say that these benefits are priceless. But this is really just the beginning; we expect wearables to radically expand in functionality and capability over the next few years.

TopDevelopers.co assessed several wearable app developers to identify the pioneers in this field. Ultimately, they had to drastically cut down their list of candidates to companies that demonstrated not only substantial experience in this field but also a proven track record of consistent client satisfaction. We’re extremely proud that our Los Angeles-based development studio made the cut!

Besides being recognized as a top wearable app developer of 2020, Dogtown Media has also had the pleasure of being featured as one of the best B2B service providers in California by Clutch as well as a leading IoT app developer by TopDevelopers.co!

At a time when it has become painfully clear that more medical innovation is sorely needed, we’re committed to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with wearable technology. We’d like to extend our thanks to TopDevelopers.co once again for recognizing our work. We’d also like to thank our clients, team, and community — we couldn’t have done it without you!

Who is TopDevelopers.co?

TopDevelopers.co is a widely respected directory and review platform for B2B IT service providers. They take a neutral approach to analyzing companies. The team of analysts at TopDevelopers.co vets organizations through stringent parameters which ensure that only the most competitive firms, businesses, enterprises, and entrepreneurs are filtered through their process. This helps service seekers find the most appropriate solutions for their needs.

Thousands of people around the world have taken a more proactive approach to their health thanks to wearables. Through a combination of the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and health app development, these devices allow users to monitor their steps taken, calories burned, heart rates, and more. But just how accurate are they?

In a recent post, we examined how wearables actually “count” your steps and why this metric can be way off the mark. If you missed this article, you can read it here. For this entry, we’ll explore how wearables track heart and calorie burn rates. We’ll also delve into some of the factors that can make these readings inaccurate.

Why Your Heart Rate Readings May Be Haywire

Ever heard of photoplethysmography (PPG)? Don’t fret if you haven’t — it’s an obscure term outside of medicine (and a mouthful to pronounce). PPG refers to the technique that most wearable devices use to measure heart rate.

By beaming a green LED into your wrist, PPG enables wearables to measure your blood volume. Every time your heart beats, more blood flows into your blood vessels. A proportional amount of the green LED’s light is absorbed by this blood. In between heart beats, your blood recedes away from your vessels, causing less light to be absorbed. Wearable devices use this difference in light absorption to calculate your heart rate.

This is certainly one of the most elegant uses of IoT development and sensors in healthcare. But it’s not without its faults. In fact, green LED sensors can be quite unreliable. To measure blood volume properly, the green light must penetrate the skin. But several studies have found that melanated skin is actually more likely to absorb it.

It’s important to note that this is still a hotly-debated topic. For instance, one study didn’t identify any correlation between skin color and accuracy. But it did report an activity error rate 30% higher than when at rest. And other research found that the Apple Watch performed quite well, regardless of skin tone.

Honing in on Your Heart Beat

To address this potential issue, Fitbit works hard on calibrating its device sensors to work accurately for everybody; the company says that the green light its wearables emit are sufficiently strong enough to penetrate through darker skin, and its sensor is receptive enough to accurately detect heart rate signals. But many users with melanated skin have complained that wearables from the San Francisco developer either gave wrong readings or didn’t work at all.

Mikael Mattsson is a Senior Research at Swedish university Karolinska Institutet. He explains that, in research settings, scientists typically calibrate and use seven different light wavelengths to capture accurate results. But fitting all of these capabilities in a small wearable is impossible.

To circumvent this, the Apple Watch doesn’t only rely on green LEDs to measure your resting heart rate; it also employs infrared sensors. While more reliable and accurate than green light, Mattsson says that movement can still cause this to measure vitals incorrectly. Apple seems to be well-aware of this issue; the Apple Watch Series 4 measures your heart’s electrical current directly via electrodes instead of relying on proxy blood level measurements.

But even with more bells and whistles, the accuracy of wrist-worn wearables can vary depending on the type of actions you’re doing. Stable, repetitive activities such as stationary biking are usually fine. But even other relatively controlled exercises like using an elliptical machine with arm levers can throw your wearables a curveball.

For this reason, Mattsson hasn’t even begun to test wearables outdoors yet. Why? “If they’re not good enough indoors, they won’t be good enough outdoors,” he explains. The lesson here is this: Wearables’ heart rate monitor can adequately function under specific conditions and are completely fine for casual use. Just know that they’re still not perfect.

These Same Inaccuracies Make Calorie Burn Rate Unreliable

If you were holding out hope that wearables track your calorie burn rate accurately, we’ve got some bad news from you. Many of these devices utilize proprietary algorithms to calculate your energy expenditure — and these algorithms factor in movement and heart rate measurements (which we all know by now can be quite erroneous).

To make calorie burn estimations more precise, numerous wearables take physical aspects such as height, weight, sex, and age into account. This enables the devices to calculate your basal metabolic rate, the usual number of calories you’d normally burn each day. But throw in the calories expended from physical exertion, and the whole equation goes awry. That’s because this is the most unreliable metric that wearables calculate.

In a study of a diverse set of people of different skin tones, fitness levels, weights, heights, and ages, Mattsson and his colleagues found that all wearables had a 20% or higher error rate for calorie burn calculations. Other studies have reported similar inaccuracies.

Mattsson believes the main problem lies in the proxy measurements and algorithms. The former gives the latter bad measurements to use in its calculations. But algorithms are already doomed from the start. “The biggest problem is that they’ve done the algorithms for a subset of people,” Mattsson says. “In most studies, you talk about white males in their 30s at an average fitness level. The farther away you get, the bigger the risk of a problem.”

The Catch-22 Facing Wearables

These problems of inaccurate readings put wearables in a perplexing conundrum. To improve their offerings, wearable developers need a diverse group of people purchasing and using their products. This, in turn, would give the developer more diverse data to train the algorithms with. But here’s the catch: People would have to use these devices, even if they’re not perfect.

Like before, the main takeaway from all of this is that wearable data must be taken in context. They can certainly inform and provide a person with a better picture of his or her health. Numerous people around the world have turned their lives around thanks to wearables. But, as with any new technology, fallibility is still present.

Wearables are one of the greatest technological marvels of our time. Emerging from a combination of the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and health app development, these devices were originally employed to track steps. But those days are long gone — wearable technology has transcended this single use case to become something much more.

Now, people around the world are using them to take a more proactive approach to their health by measuring their heart rates, sleep patterns, and calories burned. These devices are even playing integral roles in research experiments, clinical trials, and corporate wellness programs.

But just how accurate are commercial wearables, really? It turns out that a number of seemingly insignificant factors such as darker skin, pushing a shopping cart or stroller, or just shuffling while you walk can skew your data.

Wearables Don’t Count — They Approximate

In 2019, researchers conducted an accuracy study of consumer- and research-grade wearables when used by older adults. 18 senior citizens took part. After being strapped with trackers on their wrists, ankles, belts, and chests, they were tasked with strolling on a treadmill. But none of the gadgets displayed an accurate step count.

It turns out that the participants’ movements were too slow to trigger the sensors in all of the devices. Fast forward to today, and it’s now becoming clear that various factors can make your wearable’s tracking capabilities go awry. To get the most accurate results, you have to fit into quite a narrow demographic: Have a light skin tone, be in your 20s or 30s, possess an average fitness level, and walk with a “purposeful” gait.

If you can check all those boxes, then odds are good that your wearable tracking will work better. With that said, it’s worth noting that wearables don’t exactly count every step; they actually approximate them using an accelerometer. Commonly used in IoT development, these electromagnetic sensors can pick up on motion.

When the accelerometer detects motion, the wearable then interprets the information using an algorithm that has been trained to recognize what constitutes a step. With personalized data such as a user’s height, weight, and age, these calculations can be customized to be more precise.

Your Data Is a Reflection of How You Move

But personal information about the user can only get us so far. To see why wearables can oftentimes be inaccurate, we must investigate how the algorithms they utilize are trained.

Lynne Feehan is an Associate Professor of the University of British Columbia’s Physical Therapy Department and the co-author of a Fitbit accuracy study. She says that the algorithms employed by wearables are usually based on data obtained from studies on college-aged men.

“They [wearables] do detect steps well if it’s normal paced steps, normal cadence,” Feehan explains. “They were designed to measure purposeful walking.” But if you’re prone to shuffling or taking small steps, or if you find yourself pushing a walker or shopping cart, the accelerometer probably won’t be as accurate. “There’s a definite bias in there. How a child moves and how someone who’s 90 moves is very different,” says Feehan.

Shelten Yuen, the Vice President of Research at San Francisco-based Fitbit, says that the company continuously strives to enhance its algorithms: “Fitbit uses AI and machine learning, coupled with insights from its large database of biometric information to develop and continually improve its offerings.”

Walk with intent while thrusting your arm forward with each step, and your wearable will most likely sense and record the movement correctly. But if you don’t move your arms much while in motion, have a limp, or just like to stroll leisurely, it’s safe to assume that your data is thrown off a bit. More specifically, Feehan and her colleagues found that Fitbits under-recorded steps by older adults by as much as 25%.

Accounting for Inaccuracy

In their study, Feehan and her co-authors also discovered some other startling results. For instance, the wearables tended to only have acceptable accuracy one-third to one-half of the time! While walking normally or jogging in the lab environment, they would undercount steps 50% of the time. Outside of lab conditions, they’d overcount steps by as much as 35%. Fitbit has declined to comment on this and other individual studies.

And in case you were looking for unethical ways to increase your step count (say, for a workplace-sponsored fitness program), wearables also tend to be fairly easy to fool. Attaching them to metronomes or spinning them around with drills or bicycle wheels can all do the trick.

None of this is to say that wearables don’t provide value. On the contrary, they’ve helped thousands of people lead healthier lives. If you want to compare your activity levels day by day, these devices are indispensable. However, if you’re specifically aiming for a goal like 10,000 steps a day, you may want to take your results with a grain of salt.

Stay Tuned and Stay Healthy

We hope you’ve enjoyed this brief overview of how well wearables count steps. Stay tuned! Next week, we’ll delve into how capable these devices are of tracking heart rate and caloric burn.

Do you use a wearable? Have you found it to be accurate? How would you improve your device? As always, let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

When Dogtown Media first opened its doors in 2011, we knew that wearables were something special; it was immediately obvious that these devices held immense potential for improving how we interact with medical apps and our own health. Since those early days, we’ve striven to keep up and innovate with the latest developments in this technology.

And it appears our hard work is paying off — TopDevelopers.co has recognized Dogtown Media as a leading wearable app developer!

Over the past few years, it’s been a pleasure to watch the growth of the wearables market. The sharp increase in the usage of wearable devices has been accompanied by numerous possibilities being opened up for medicine. This technology is no longer just for simple fitness tracking. Wearables can now give you a holistic perspective of your health.

Such insights enable anyone to take control of their health and shine a light on better ways for doctors to manage medical maladies. These advantages are priceless. But perhaps most surprising is that this is just the tip of the iceberg of what wearables are capable of; expect the features of these devices to expand in a multitude of ways over the next few years.

TopDevelopers.co evaluated numerous wearable app developers to identify the pioneers in this field. Ultimately, they had to trim down their list to organizations with substantial experience in this niche and a long history of consistent client satisfaction. It’s an absolute honor that our Los Angeles-based development studio made the cut!

Besides being dubbed a top wearable app developer, Dogtown Media was also recently named a top U.S. mobile app developer by TopDevelopers.co. We were also fortunate to be lauded as one of California’s leading app developers by Clutch!

At a time where it has become readily apparent that more medical innovation is sorely needed, we’re proud to say that we’ll keep on trying our best to push the boundaries of what’s possible with wearable technology.

Thanks so much to TopDevelopers.co for recognizing us. We’d also like to thank our clients, team, and community — we couldn’t have done it without you!

Who is TopDevelopers.co?

TopDevelopers.co is a widely respected directory and review platform for B2B IT service providers. They take a neutral approach to analyzing companies. The team of analysts at TopDevelopers.co vets organizations through stringent parameters which ensure that only the most competitive firms, businesses, enterprises, and entrepreneurs are filtered through their process. This helps service seekers find the most appropriate solutions for their needs.

If these numbers astound you, consider that the global Internet of Things (IoT) industry is forecasted by experts to connect over 20 billion devices and sensors by the end of this year; that amounts to 1 to 2 for every person in the world.

Many of these devices will come in the form of wearables. It’s imperative that we think deeply about how we utilize this technology — it could have a monumental impact on our health and environment.

Proliferation of Mobile

As smartphones become more affordable and accessible through the improvement of mobile networks and infrastructure, we’ve also seen rapid growth in wearable technology.

Wearables are devices that are worn on the body, as clothes or as accessories. The smartwatch has been the most successful wearable thus far, but many innovative companies have released smart jewelry, glasses, handbags, clothes, and other apparel.

Experts forecast that wearables will become more popular and ubiquitous in the future, eventually permeating every facet of human life. But this prediction could come with consequences.

Researchers like Andreas Köhler, Ph.D. pointed out almost a decade ago (in 2013) that electronics are made of scarce materials that can cause a shortage of supplies in the future; these electronics are very difficult to recycle and reuse when they die, and the global economy and society have become reliant on these products.

Many scientists, like Köhler, believe that industrial and IoT developers, engineers, and designers need to heed the scarcity of these materials and make alternative choices when possible. Developing electronics with a lifecycle that ends with recycling is also a priority to create a more sustainable market for wearables to flourish in. These changes require a change in supply chain logistics as well as our mindsets.

Overcoming Sustainability Challenges

Combining textiles with electronics creates a massive problem for the environment. Since mobile phones and wearables are short-lived electronic goods (especially compared to laptops/desktops, TVs, and even tablets), their product cycles are shorter. We often get bombarded to buy the newest phone model once every year or once every year and a half.

Creating the ambiance of “fast fashion” for consumers in regards to wearables can lead to wearables getting dumped into the landfill. They would become a mass-consumed and mass-disposal electronic product.

What’s worse is that wearables (and essentially all electronics) further deteriorate our environment, society, and human health by increasing the difficulty of recycling electronic waste, scarce resource consumption, and power consumption.

Without a proper lifecycle that ends with recycling scarce materials, we’re further damaging the environment and human lives in generating demand for difficult-to-obtain materials. Without recycling, just as we’ve seen with plastic waste, our wearables would ultimately end up in our water, air, and soil, increasing the number, frequency, and severity of health problems for humans.

Wearables also perpetuate the idea of an always-online culture, which harms human culture, interaction, and mental health.

Adding to everything above, the aspect of data security and privacy is always lurking in the background for emerging technologies. A data leak or loss of data security has real-life implications for users who are impacted.

Opportunities to Improve Sustainability

Experts straddle the line on wearables; many believe that wearables will disrupt how consumers currently shop for products.

If done right, wearables would have a longer lifespan, which would help consumers reframe their view of mobile electronic products. In fact, if manufacturers were able to source more durable material and improve the user’s awareness and knowledge of cleaning and maintaining their wearable device, wearables could last each consumer much longer.

To truly improve the consumption rate of electronics, software compatibility and multi-platform support must be available at any given time. The product and the product’s company should constantly adapt to users’ changing wants and needs.

Research shows that when a product meets the user’s needs and lifestyle and has a meaning for the user, an emotional attachment is created. With an emotional attachment, products have a much longer lifetime.

Medical developers working on health- and fitness-related wearables should build as much customization into the product as possible to allow for the user to become more in tune with it. At our Los Angeles-based mobile app development studio, we work with our clients to brainstorm as many features and data analysis as we can for the user to benefit from.

As a result, society experiences fewer health problems, an improved process for aging, and decreased healthcare costs. These changes directly improve quality of life and open the door for telehealth and preventative medicine.

The User’s Role

Much of the onus on our mass-consumer culture (especially in regards to electronics) rests on us as the consumers. If we didn’t validate the short electronic lifecycle by buying the latest model when it comes out, we could send the right message to the company.

All told, the consumer’s behavior will determine how sustainable wearable products can be. Even if every single wearable was designed with the least scarce resources, if consumers don’t adapt their behavior to buy electronics less often, we won’t see any improvement for the environment and human health.

At this point in time, wearables could be on the right track if we (as users and consumers) take care of them, use them longer, adopt them more slowly, and dispose of them responsibly.

Original Article Featured in Guidepoint.

Wearables are making an unprecedented impact on the medical field. Users are able to form a more complete picture of their health, and physicians are able to glean insights and take action faster. Countless opportunities have opened up for innovators to improve how we manage medical maladies. Are you ready for a healthier future?

A SHIFT FROM FITNESS TO MEDICINE

In the early days of wearables, devices like the Fitbit enabled users to track basic metrics such as step count from their wrists. Not long after, both consumers and innovators realized that wearables could do much more. This was the advent of medical wearables, and it hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down.

Some forecasts predict that the medical wearables market will surpass $14 billion by 2024. Other experts, like Juniper Research, believe this breakneck growth will make spending on these devices reach $60 billion by 2023. While projections vary, one thing is clear — healthcare wearables are becoming more ubiquitous.

To cement themselves a place in the future of medical wearables, companies like Apple, Biotronik, and Garmin are doubling down on their research and development in this space. As a result, wearables are not only becoming smarter but also more comfortable and less obtrusive. Patients can now incorporate these devices into their lifestyles with minimal effort and a massive return on investment.

A MORE HOLISTIC PICTURE OF YOUR HEALTH

In the past, the onus of noticing and reporting symptoms solely rested on the patient. From there, the healthcare provider would need to conduct examinations and tests to decide the best treatment plan. Today, healthcare wearables can paint a more accurate, comprehensive picture of a patient’s health than the limited snapshot offered in a single medical appointment. In turn, hidden patterns can be uncovered, medical conditions can be elucidated, and both physicians and patients can become more informed.

With a built-in EKG sensor, the Apple Watch is a prime example of these capabilities in practice for detecting to heart disease, which accounts for one out of four deaths in America. In a study of 400,000 Apple Watch users, researchers found that the device detected irregular heartbeats in 0.5% of participants extremely accurately; 84 percent of that 0.5% were flagged and confirmed to be having a real medical event.

TRANSFORMING DATA INTO REAL-TIME ACTION

Remote monitoring is an amazing medical development, but all the data in the world is worthless without action. By monitoring a patient’s vitals in real time, wearables can act as the first line of defense in an emergency. For example, Dogtown Media, my mobile technology firm, created a wearable alert ecosystem for patients suffering from chronic illnesses.

If a patient’s health starts trending downwards, medical attention is needed fast. This goes for whether the patient is having a heart attack in their sleep, their blood glucose level drops, or they fall out of bed and hurt themselves. As soon as this happens, our system automatically notifies a caregiver, family member, or doctor of the emergency. If there is no response, the system then contacts a nearby medical facility to dispatch an ambulance to the device’s GPS location.

Seconds and minutes matter in these events. Fortunately, wearables can not only alert healthcare providers instantly, but they can also equip them with the information needed to tailor treatment plans for optimal success. This means there’s no wasted time when it comes to saving lives. And the patient’s loved ones can have peace of mind knowing they’ll be alerted at the first sign of an emergency.

A HEALTHIER FUTURE FOR ALL

Medical wearables are a ripe frontier that any ambitious entrepreneur or innovative provider should consider exploring. This technology is allowing more people to leverage higher-quality healthcare, and it’s also expanding beyond the smartwatch to help with a variety of medical issues. Organizations around the world are finally realizing the true potential of medical wearables, and they’re bringing the right dose of innovation to make it a reality.

Consider the MiniMed 670G, a smart blood glucose monitor that checks a diabetic user’s blood sugar every five minutes and administers insulin as needed. Or check out Biotronik’s BioMonitor 2, an implantable heart monitoring device that’s more accurate than a wrist-based monitor and can transmit data daily for up to four years. There’s even clothing in development, such as a smart fabric from Dartmouth College which helps physical therapy patients expedite recoveries.

The list of medical wearable applications is endless, and the sky is truly the limit for this technology. By transforming real-time medical data into actionable insights, wearables are allowing us to take control of our health. We’re entering a new era of medicine — one in which preventative healthcare is becoming the standard.

The last decade made one thing abundantly clear: Technology has invaded and transformed every aspect of our lives.

The Internet of Things (IoT) made it possible to set the mood (and temperature) at home before you even walked through the door. Artificial intelligence (AI) now lets automobiles take the wheel. With the rise of streaming services, cable is quickly becoming a relic of the past. And wearables are shifting from fitness gimmicks to integral pillars of preventative medicine.

In the first year of this new decade, these technological trends will only pick up the pace in revamping our day-to-day. From the wearables market heating up to smarter homes, here’s what to watch out for in 2020.

The Wearables War Wages On

The wearables war between Apple and Fitbit is nothing new. But this year, competition in the wearables sector will reach new heights. Fortunately, this will spur more creativity and innovation with these gadgets than ever before.

For quite a while, it seemed like this battle was over and Apple had won. The 2015 release of the Apple Watch, a smartwatch that took health tech development to a new level, was met with utter pandemonium and gave the company a substantial share of the market. And the follow-up 2016 release of the AirPods, wireless earbuds that you can control with Siri, seemed to seal the deal.

But all of this success didn’t dissuade other tech giants from entering the wearables market. In fact, it probably encouraged them by elucidating new possibilities. Wearables weren’t simply step counters; with some ingenuity, they could lead innovation in health monitoring. Since the release of the Apple Watch, gadget makers like Garmin, Xiaomi, and Samsung have thrown their hats into the ring.

Yet the biggest competitor that Apple has to watch out for is undoubtedly Google. The tech titan recently acquired Fitbit for $2.1 billion and has also gained access to millions of healthcare records. All of these ingredients put together could concoct a recipe that ends up taking the wearables throne from Apple.

Regardless of which company wins or loses in this tech war, one thing’s certain: Consumers will benefit tremendously from the resulting innovation.

The Streaming War Starts

It’s an exciting time in the streaming era. For the longest time, Netflix dominated this market and technology. And 2019 was much of the same story for the service, headquartered about an hour out from San Francisco.

Last year, people spent an average of 23 minutes per day streaming Netflix content. That’s even more impressive when you consider that digital video comprised 25% of all time spent on digital devices last year — including time spent on apps and the Internet. But Netflix’s luck may soon change.

With the arrival of streaming services like HBO Max, Apple TV Plus, and Disney Plus, the fight for our attention has never been more intense. Consequently, it’s likely that Netflix’s share of our time will most likely decline in 2020. “Even though Americans are spending more time watching Netflix, people’s attention will become more divided as new streamers emerge,” says eMarketer analyst Ross Benes.

The good news for consumers is that there are more viewing content options. And like the wearables war, hopefully, increased competition means higher quality. If new shows like “The Mandalorian” or “Watchmen” aren’t satisfying your binging needs, there’s no more need to change the channel; just change the app.

Tech Titans Are Working Together to Make Smart Home Automation Seamless

For modern living environments, “the biggest thing [right now] is connected everything,” according to Carolina Milanesi, a technology analyst at Creative Strategies, a research firm. “Anything in the home — we’ll have more cameras, more mics, more sensors.”

Recent advancements in IoT development and AI have caused these connectivity efforts to take leaps and bounds in recent years, to the point that smart speakers from Amazon and Google are now commonplace and at the center of many homes. These devices make it possible to control lighting, play music, and even turn on robot vacuums with just your voice.

But there is one hurdle to overcome with smart home products: They’re not easy to set up. As a result, most homes’ virtual assistants are relegated to basic tasks like checking the weather or acting as a cooking timer.

To address this quandary, it appears that Apple, Google, and Amazon have called a truce. This past December, the three tech companies announced they’d be collaborating to make standards that allow their smart home products to be compatible with each other. For example, if you bought a lighting system that works with Alexa, it will now be able to work with Google Assistant or Siri as well.

According to Milanesi, eliminating complexity was a necessity for smart home device makers to reach their real objective: Making home automation truly automated. “You want the devices to talk to each other instead of me being the translator between these device interactions,” she explains. “If I open my door, then the door can say to the lights that the door is open and therefore the lights need to turn on.”

In this way, your smart home can actually feel like home — without any words needed.

What Tech Do You Want to See This Year?

2020 is shaping up to be a big year for consumer technology, and we can’t wait to see how wearables, streaming, and smart home automation evolve.

What tech is making you most excited for the upcoming year? What about the decade? As always, let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

This article was originally featured on The Next Web.

One of the latest updates to the Apple Watch included FDA-approved ECG monitoring, and it made waves in both the consumer and medical communities.

Many people thought this was impossible. Some were worried about false positives. But most were excited about the potential good that a widely used device with an ECG monitor might be able to do. Once the product was released, users quickly saw the benefits, and some even credited the watch with saving their lives.

In theory, Apple’s ECG monitor shouldn’t cause such a stir. After all, the Apple Watch isn’t the first device of its kind on the market. But if you look past the surface level, you’ll see why the Apple Watch garnered this monumental momentum.

Unlike most companies, Apple inherently understands that functionality is only one part of what makes a product successful. The other crucial component is design.

Why design is so important

It’s fair to stop and ask why design matters so much when it comes to wearable medical devices. After all, the point of these devices is to help patients live healthy lives, not outsell tech giants and look sleek.

But there’s something missing in that logic. It ignores one vital fact: It doesn’t matter how effective a device is if no one wants to use it.

In my experience, clunky, poorly designed medical devices only result in frustration, misuse, and total abandonment — even when doing so has immense potential repercussions for users’ health.

That said, design actually determines whether life-saving technology ever gets the chance to save lives at all.

The difficulty in design for wearable healthcare technology

Design problems in the medical community are rooted in more than just engineers not caring how a product looks or a lack of talented user interface designers in the field. Those are baseless ideas.

The actual problem is that, frankly, it’s difficult to create a usable, effective product that’s comfortable to wear and stylish enough not to feel self-conscious about.

I’ve seen plenty of wearables fail because they didn’t include one or more of these essential elements, both in consumer markets and the medical community. Whether it’s fitness devices that cause rashes, augmented reality glasses that earn wearers a rather unfortunate nickname, or skin patches that either fall off too easily or cause serious irritation, the world of wearables is littered with products that almost hit the mark but ultimately aren’t up to snuff.

These devices are seen and heard and felt — and not in the way you want. They’re also great examples of why invisibility is so important in the design of medical wearables. If the technology is going to impact its users, it has to be as inconspicuous as possible.

There’s also the added design hurdle of earning FDA approval. Regulations make keeping up with the latest technology that much harder, giving consumer products that don’t have to meet them a chance to get ahead.

All of these things often leave medical device manufacturers feeling like it’s easier to focus on function over form, and hope the effectiveness of the product outweighs its poor usability. Unfortunately, this mentality puts lives at risk. Devices that can detect early indicators of a stroke or cardiac arrest, for instance, have the potential to save lives — but only if people are willing to wear them.

Invisibility is the key to making devices usable

Designer Joe Sparano once said, “Good design is obvious, great design is transparent.” What he meant was that the most well-designed products are so easy to use that consumers don’t even notice all the work that went into them.

For medical device developers, this quote must be a mantra.

This doesn’t mean healthcare companies or medical manufacturers are out of luck. Rather, it means they should take a page from Silicon Valley’s product development playbook if they want to create their own compelling offerings that can actually compete.

The best wearable healthcare devices tend to be passive, with most of the monitoring happening in the background. You don’t need to turn something on and off, position it in a certain spot, or let it know what you’re doing — you just wear it, and it collects and analyzes the data without you knowing.

Think of it this way: if it’s as invisible as possible, users are more likely to wear it on a regular basis, precisely because they’ll forget that they’re wearing it at all.

It takes roughly seven seconds to make a first impression. When it comes to medical wearables, those seven seconds are all about design. And they can mean the difference between a product that gets the chance to save lives and one that gets left by the wayside.

If medical device manufacturers are serious about creating a new era of better health through wearable technology, they have to pay attention to unobtrusive design and make it critical to their mission. Only then will they be able to break into the field and change — or save — lives.

Do you have an idea for a disruptive medical device, but you don’t know where to begin? Dogtown Media is an FDA-compliant developer with extensive experience in bringing health tech innovations to life.

Contact us today for a Free Consultation!

Welcome to the second and final entry of our “IoT Everywhere” series! In the first part, we examined what the Internet of Things (IoT) really is, where it came from, and where it’s headed. In case you missed it, you can check it out here.

For this segment, we’ll explore a few examples of popular IoT devices and paradigms in place today. More specifically, we’ll look at how wearables, chatbots, and smart cities are affecting our lives already and what we can expect to see from them in the near future. We’ll also take a look at cybersecurity’s paramount role in keeping IoT safe.

Wearable Devices

Wearables have been one of the largest categories of IoT devices since their popularity spike in 2017. During this year, 115 million wearable devices were bought globally. As wearable technology becomes smarter, faster, and less intrusive, that number is expected to increase.

Most people think of FitBits and Apple Watches when they hear the word “wearables.” With the ability to count steps, calories, and monitor metrics like heart rate, these devices are undoubtedly responsible for wearables’ surge in popularity. But they’re far from the only wearable technology on the scene now.

Other wearable devices include blood-glucose monitors, biometric sensors in workout shirts and sports bras, and even alertness level sensors in baseball caps for truck and heavy machinery drivers.

Another cool wearable idea is Internet-connected contacts that can let the user take photos or record videos for uploading. Think this is too futuristic? Think again — Samsung, Sony, and Google already have pending patents for this concept.

Wearables will inevitably play an integral role in pivoting healthcare from a reactive to a preventative model. Currently, the space is wide open for innovation, and many entrepreneurs and startups are racing to claim a stake in helping us shape a healthier future. Do you have any medical wearables ideas? If so, consider trying to make them a reality!

Chatbots

AI assistants use IoT to grab whatever information you’re asking for at the moment. Currently, most people use these capabilities to streamline functions in the home such as changing the thermostat or turning lights on or off. But this same technology is coming to your office, too.

Take office printers, for example. When the printer toner is low, an AI assistant will alert the appropriate person right away and even set up an online order of ink to be delivered ASAP. If the printer itself starts acting abnormally, the AI assistant will notify IT personnel to attend to the situation.

This technology marks the move away from text-based chatbots to voice-enabled ones. Using natural language processing and machine learning, vocal-based chatbots are self-optimizing their performance to be even better.

Smart Cities

Smart cities are a big investment, requiring incredible amounts of time, money, and effort. To outfit a metropolis with sensors requires coordination, organization, and a lot of patience. And down the line, further IoT development, troubleshooting, and testing require even more resources to bring new smart city features into the fold. But most urban areas of today will eventually be transformed into smart cities in some capacity.

Smart cities aim to improve citizen’s lives and better manage resources. In smart city IoT systems, machine-to-machine (M2M) interactions are necessary; no humans are needed to interpret data or outputs. These types of integrations save cities money and allow for faster, less error-prone communication.

While M2M interactions sound innovative, they’ve been around in cities for decades. Traffic lights are powered by M2M technology. But there’s some room for improvement. For example, when it’s late at night and there’s not much traffic, IoT-enabled traffic lights should direct you to go when the coast is clear. Often, we spend 5 minutes at a traffic light with no passing traffic. Although cities have put optimizations into place for traffic flow, cities will feel more seamless when machines are working in tandem.Public Wi-Fi in the subway system or over bridges will no longer be a futuristic idea. Public transportation, package deliveries, and cargo importing and exporting will become automated. These features will reduce environmental hazards and increase public safety.

By 2030, water consumption will increase by 40% globally. By watching our city’s water supply closely and ensuring preventative maintenance is routinely performed, we can help cities control their water needs without decreasing public access.

Cybersecurity Considerations

As we connect additional devices and sensors to our IoT systems, cybersecurity becomes increasingly weakened. Although most of our devices today are secure, newer devices that circumvent regulation can easily slip into the mix. Sure, adding one or two unsecured devices into your IoT system may not seem like a big deal, but when you’ve added in 6 or 7, you’re looking at a big security risk.

A Proofpoint researcher found a botnet virus in many IoT devices, including smart TVs, computers, and baby monitors. The virus was able to steal data, send spam, and remotely access the devices without asking the owner if it was allowed.

While a baby monitor may sound like a small issue, imagine the consequences of a botnet attack on an entire city’s devices and sensors.

Cybersecurity experts aren’t letting the boom of IoT devices stop them, however; Juniper Research, a consulting firm based outside of London, estimates that IoT cybersecurity spend will reach $6 billion by 2023. That’s a massive 300% increase over 2018.

IoT security experts warn consumers and enterprises alike to take cautionary steps towards securing devices. This includes advice like:

1. Be wary of connecting to cloud services without reading about their data encryption and protection policies.
2. Create separate networks for your IoT devices to connect to. This will help outsiders from connecting to the same network
3. Change up your passwords and don’t repeat them across websites and devices. Telesign’s recent survey showed that 75% of all consumers use the same password across websites, and many users don’t change their passwords for five years.
4. Universal Plug and Play is a great feature that allows your device to connect to nearby devices seamlessly. But this feature shouldn’t be turned on unless it’s necessary for your experience. This feature opens up the opportunity for botnet attacks, so play it safe!

IoT Is Connecting Us to the Future

The future is bright for IoT development, and we’ll certainly see IoT impact our lives in more ways than one. Expect to see this technology in our commutes, offices, cars, homes, kitchens, and so much more. IoT is connecting technology to humanity in unprecedented ways. And we can’t wait to see how this future unfolds.

What IoT innovations are you looking forward to benefiting from? Let us know in the comments below!

In England, patients leaving a group of hospitals in the southeast are receiving their own wireless, connected armbands. These wearables watch vital signs like oxygen levels, pulse, respiratory rate, body temperature, and blood pressure. This new discharge protocol is being carried out under a new National Health Service pilot program.

The new program uses AI to analyze the patient’s data in real-time speed, and it’s already shown to decrease hospital readmission rates and emergency room visits. Home visits, which can be expensive, have reduced by 22%, and patients are following their treatment plans more closely at home.

To AI or Not to AI?

Harvard Business School professor and Innosight co-founder Clay Christensen says this AI MedTech program is targeting “non-consumption”. This is a business opportunity where consumers are required to take action but they don’t currently have the tools or technology to do so.

For example, prior to the armbands, hospital employees had to drive up to 1.5 hours round-trip to check on patients in-person once per week. With AI algorithms keeping an eye on worrisome data trends, however, patients and hospital employees get notified well in advance of any major health complication.

Many experts believe that AI will introduce very low-error predictions at a much cheaper cost than using humans. These successful case studies always lead to more AI implementations in healthcare, but sometimes AI isn’t appropriate for every sector of healthcare. And because AI MedTech applications can be expensive to design and develop, healthcare systems that focus on the bottom line aren’t well-suited for this type of technology.

AI in medical imaging tools is very expensive; hospitals are forecasted to spend over $2 billion per year by 2023. Currently, hospitals employ specialists who are trained to find diseases ranging from cancer to cataracts. But because this profession requires holistic knowledge of the body and medicine, AI isn’t the greatest asset for these specialists. Its ability to be useful to patients is low, and associated costs won’t decrease for this AI application either.

Decentralized Care

For clinics that want to decentralize care, AI is a perfect tool, however. For example, patients are faced with a multitude of choices throughout the day that directly affect their health: the choice to exercise, eat moderately and varied, meditate, and more. Usually, there isn’t a doctor around telling us what’s best for our health; we must make the choice for ourselves. But these choices add up over time to increase the cost of healthcare for everyone.

The World Health Organization estimates that 60% of related factors to health and quality of life correlate directly to lifestyle choices, like taking prescriptions, reducing stress, and exercising. With AI, sending the patient a reminder to exercise or eat a veggie meal doesn’t take any extra time or effort from the doctor. And if something looks off, the AI can decide whether to send a reminder to meditate or set up a doctor’s appointment.

Several universities and health insurance companies are working to increase patient monitoring from home. These programs have produced positive results, but it’ll take some time before the AI fully meets researchers’ expectations.

Experts look to a future where the U.K.’s NHS program gets implemented in locally first before open sourcing it for global use. Already, the connected devices were approved by the FDA for use in New York City’s Mount Sinai Hospital. In the U.S., patient readmissions cost hospitals more than $40 billion every year.

These programs have yielded three lessons on how to use AI to address non-consumption in patient-centric healthcare.

(1) Target an impact on critical metrics, like readmission rates and insurance payouts.

And then begin to tackle the metric with realistic goals instead of lofty ideas. AI can be iteratively optimized for continuous improvement if it can see an evolving trend in the data. Grady Hospital in Atlanta has saved $4 million through a reduction in readmission rates by using AI to find at-risk patients.

(2) Increase collaboration to reduce risks.

Finding others who are working to crack the same problem as you can mean the difference between three years or a decade in launch time. Ascension, Aetna, Optum, Humana, and other insurance companies are collaborating in using blockchain to increase their data pool with customer data. By reducing time to consolidate out-of-network claims, these insurance companies are also improving patient access to care providers.

Sometimes, doing the job without help can pose major risks. For example, the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston had a multi-million dollar AI project fail because it was incompatible with its own electronic health records system.

(3) Partner with highly-specialized professionals instead of competing against them.

Several modern-day AI applications compete with doctors; for example, radiology-focused AI algorithms often perform as well as or better than human radiologists in image-based diagnosing. But we shouldn’t let AI usurp the specialist because AI needs human eyes to check over its recommended decisions.

A Healthier Future

AI in MedTech and healthcare is changing and improving lives all around the world. And while AI isn’t the right tool for every medical application, it can yield profound results in situations where it’s needed. Better health and healthcare is undoubtedly a win-win for every stakeholder involved.

What AI applications are you most excited to see in healthcare in the near future? Let us know in the comments!