Tag: wearable technology

Wearable technology can help with dog health tracking

These wearables aren’t just for humans, as pet dogs can also have their fitness monitored by their owners.

Among the hottest growing trends in humans is wearable technology that helps to monitor fitness, and now there is a growing market growing for a similar purpose, but with dogs in mind, instead.

Pet wellness has become a considerable market, and tech such as wearables is making its way in.

Last year, it was estimated that Americans, alone, spent $58 billion on care for their furry family members. As the trend for wearable technology fitness gadgets rise in humans, people are starting to realize that there is a considerable opportunity available to track the activity levels of their pets, as well, and that this could help them to make better choices in exercising and feeding their animal companions. A growing number of companies are paying attention to that trend, and are offering their own versions of pedometers and fitness trackers with Rover in mind.

Wearable technology trackers can help owners to gain a better understanding of the health of their pets.

Wearable technology - Dog HealthMany pet owners (also known as “pet parents”) are finding that wellness websites for dogs, combined with fitness trackers, are giving them the information that they need to better decide how much food their animals should be fed, and what additional activities need to be added to a dog’s day to ensure that he or she will remain healthy and happy.

Many owners discover that their pets haven’t been nearly as active as they had thought, throughout the day. This gives them the chance to take their dogs on more walks, or to add extra playtime to ensure that their dogs will not end up become overweight or, even worse, obese. Pet obesity is a dangerous condition that shortens the life of the animal and takes away from their overall wellbeing.

While some wearable technology devices are providing information about factors such as activity levels, others add more features such as sleeping patterns, and even behaviors such as scratching. By knowing more about these behaviors, and by knowing what is “normal” for an individual animal, pet owners will be better capable of identifying potential problems, earlier on.

Augmented reality glasses patent awarded to Apple

The technology involved appears to be wearables that will connect to and interact with the iPhone.

Apple Inc. has now been awarded a patent for a type of augmented reality glasses that would function based on a wireless connection with the iPhone and would possibly offer the wearer a three dimensional AR functionality not entirely unlike that of the halted Google Glass product.

The original filing for this AR technology device patent occurred back in September 2008.

The patent involves a mountable device that could be created in the form of wearable technology such as goggles or hats or that could be attached to hats or helmets. The patent doesn’t specifically discuss virtual or augmented reality, but it does show a device that has the potential of offering a split screen capability in order to display several different image frames in order to provide three dimension-like image depth through stereoscopic imaging.

The patent also shows possible augmented reality glasses that could adjust media display beyond the glasses lenses.

Augmented Reality -  iPhoneThis would display the images at a distance of about 4 meters (about 13 feet), instead of 20 millimeters (about ¾ inch). That is the concept behind AR technology and it has, therefore, been assumed in many reports that this tech will be the focus of those wearables.

That said, Apple could choose to create integration of further advanced VR or AR functions into a device if it chose to do so, and could opt not to progress with the development. That said, as is always the case with Apple, it declined the opportunity to comment on any of its products that are still in development and that have not yet been officially unveiled.

This technology comes at a time in which Google has recently announced that its own two year old Explorer Program for its Google Glass augmented reality glasses has been shut down. Moreover, that company has hired a former exec from Apple, Tony Fadell, at the head of the company’s redevelopment efforts. It has stated that it will continue to sell the device to enterprise customers, but it is very clear that the company has taken a step backward from the route that it had been taking with that wearable technology.