A perspective on Wearables

IMHO – Wearables should be called “Accessibles”. Traditionally we have worn clothes and accessories (shoes, jewellery, watches, hats, etc) – mostly to protect the body from the elements and otherwise to accentuate our looks. Remember the scene from 3 Idiots, where Amir Khan provides the simplified definition of machine, as being anything that reduces human effort. Think of how appropriate that definition was and how simply logical it was. Within that context, and very rightly so, what separates us from animals is just this very simply fact – that we have surrounded ourselves by machines – from the time we wake up (alarm clock) to the time we sleep (sleep monitor) and all the time in between – radio/tv for news and entertainment; monitoring/measuring of temperature of surroundings and self, heart rate, distance, steps, etc; phone for communication long distance, and with texting even over short distances :); gas/stove/microwave to process foods; bikes/cars/planes etc to get around; computers to process information faster; machines to control machines and more machines to monitor the machines that control machines. You get the idea.
Now think what the, quote – wearables – unquote, do for us. We have taken some of the machines and created another machine so as not to have to go to the machine or have the machine come to us. We have made the machines, not all, but a lot of them, quote – ACCESSIBLE – unquote. Conveniently, we call each of the machine that is accessible through the wearable, an app. Making time more accessible, communication more accessible, monitoring more accessible, taking notes (text, voice, video, smell and touch soon enough) and so on. Each advanced app makes another app or machine more accessible – just like how we have a framework to combine other frameworks, an interface to other interfaces; each such indirection providing a certain value added macro capability masking and/or combining other micro capabilities. While machines reduce human effort, wearables reduce the effort to use/access machines – hence ACCESSIBLES. And if you wanted a play on words – Wearables is just the new word for the age old complement to clothes; quote – ACCESSORIES – unquote.