How Do You Feel About AI In Your Eyewear?

By Karen and Erica

We have always believed that tech would come around to making our lives better, especially as we aged--and that some day manufacturers would realize they should be marketing smart devices to us.

They haven’t been that smart, yet, but we have recently learned of some new (to us) wearable tech products that are said to be designed to enhance our lives--although most seem oriented to the assumption we are focused on declining health rather than the more profitable assumption that we want to have fun. 

This article scopes out the wearable market. Some of them sound cool, some sound crazy, and we can’t claim to have tried most of them. 

First, there are hearables. You may not call them by that name, but if you have any product that you wear on or in your ears—to let you hear music, or listen to a phone conversation without bothering everyone in the room—you have a hearable. AirPods are ubiquitous--and presumably very profitable for Apple given the fact people lose them constantly. Less easily lost are headphones, which are good for working at home because they can have noise cancelling abilities. 

But this is just the beginning. The tech companies want to take over your entire brain--and of course harvest ever more of your data, given the uncertain regulatory framework for protecting your privacy.

Amazon Echo Frames are eyeglasses with teeny speakers that only you can hear. Why would you want these glasses? Alexa has been made HIPAA compliant, intended to set her up to do a wide range of health related tasks. These glasses are perhaps an extension of that initiative. If you need to be reminded to take a pill while you are on the road, maybe having Alexa in your ear is a good idea. And here are some other health tech options.

One downside with the Echo—though depicted as a selling point—you can talk to Alexa all day long. And she can talk to you all day long. Hmmm. We love peace and quiet when we walk. Having a little voice squawking at us constantly would make us nuts—and apparently we are not the only ones! But if you are someone who likes constant contact, maybe these are for you.

Obviously, hearables operate by letting you hear things, so perhaps it is a natural development that some may morph into over-the-counter hearing aids. Indeed, the FDA has put out new regulations for exactly such products. That may be a good development.

Many of these devices are being amped up by artificial intelligence. Manufacturers think it looks more normal to wear eyeglasses than earbuds, so they have put AI into glasses to augment your experience. If you are walking down an unfamiliar street when you next take a trip to a country you have never visited, your glasses could tell you, and show you, things that you might otherwise have to read about as you walk. Could be fun. Could be treacherous. So you might need a belt that detects upcoming falls.

Smart glasses can also give you useful contemporaneous data if you engage in competitive sports. We won’t be needing them for that reason, but you might!

We have one idea we would really like for smart glasses. We understand that aerosol transmission of coronavirus is dangerous. What if glasses had tiny machines, like Dyson fans, that constantly blew air down in front of our faces? Maybe eliminating the need for masks? Now that would be something!

Then there are wearables for your wrist. You have of course heard of FitBit and the like, smart watches that can deliver data about your fitness efforts. Now there are devices that can detect sleep apnea, and can give you on-demand electrocardiograms, along with music and the time. Some can give you sleep and oxygen level tracking. Some can detect symptoms of COVID. The Apple watch can do lots of things, including monitor your heart rate and detect falls. It probably tells on you if you eat a chocolate chip cookie, though, so be careful what you disclose! And Amazon just issued Halo, which can apparently determine your emotional state from tone of voice. Hmmm, once again!

If wrist wear is too much for you, maybe you would like a ring that does some of the same things, or helps you use your phone more effectively.

There are a few other tech wearables that caught our eye. One is a good looking bracelet that will charge your device on the go. Another is the Embr Wave, a wristband that can keep you cool. Or warm, depending upon what you need. One of our children says it works. The same child also owns, and swears by, a smart jacket that supplies its own heat. An even smarter jacket might be this pricy number to help you fight the flu and coronavirus.

We are sure there are millions of other new devices out there that we need, or would like, or that are fun. What have you found to make your life better?