Nice outfit – but why not add a little technology?

In a couple of years wearable tech will, we’re told, be omnipresent – so how will that change consumer behaviours? We asked Charlie Williams-Brown, a creative technologist at Mindshare UK, to share his thoughts on the future.

It’s finally got to the stage where my dad is asking about Google Glass – which can only mean one thing: wearable technology is now beeping away on the radar of the masses.

This formula may seem fairly basic to some, but past experience with iPods, iPads and Kanye West has proved it sound. When dad asks about something, it means he’s read about it in the Guardian and that means so has everyone else.

And so ‘wearable technology’ is no longer something resigned solely for people from the tech and advertising worlds. When things like this break out and are understood by the general public, it’s usually a good sign and when they don’t, it’s generally a bad one. So RIP QR codes, it was fun while it lasted.

But, the road from awareness to actual behaviour change is a tough one – insert classic consumer journey PowerPoint slide here, preferably with clip art images – tougher still when you have to pass a £100 toll booth on that road. Let’s face it, these sexy gadgets aren’t cheap.

Is my dad going to buy a Fuelband? No. Next time I go home for a roast will he have a GoPro strapped to his head? I’m hopeful, but probably not. The same can be said for Jawbone, FitBit, and Google Glass. They’re probably not on the agenda for old man Mr. Williams. But now he knows about them and that’s something.

Next year we all expect to see Apple launch the iWatch and I imagine, like most people, that’ll be the first piece of wearable tech that gets him to part with his hard earned coins.

Apple doesn’t generally do fads or bad products, which is why we can be fairly sure that wearable technology is here to stay. They weren’t the first MP3 player on the scene, nor the first smartphone, but when they turned up to the party, their products drove categories and more importantly, changes in consumer behaviour. They elevate a category’s excitement from the tech scene to the masses. iWatch will do the same for wearable tech.

So, in a couple of years wearable tech will be omnipresent, but what does that mean?

Personally I’m split.

No one can deny it’s exciting. But, strapping a GoPro on my head has never felt too appealing and I harbour similar feelings for Google Glass. They are ripe for extreme athletes and the Tim Pools of the world, but those guys have little in common with the everyman.

With an eye on future products however, gadgets that can encourage exercise in an age of obesity are only a good thing. Likewise, biometric sensors that can measure glucose levels for diabetics could save lives, as could heart-rate monitors. A watch on your wrist with that power is a very positive piece of kit indeed.

The ability to read of text messages or check the weather are less striking reasons to buy, but still they are quite a departure from what’s currently strapped to my wrist – a lovely gold Skagen if you’re asking – whether they will be useful or not remains to be seen.

But what really gives me the heebie jeebies is where this is all heading. The fear of the world being taken over by robots used to keep me awake as a kid, but now I realise the reality is that we are much more likely to become them. With every iWatch and Google Glass we are turning more of what we do in our real world lives, into data in the digital one.

Of course this is all part of a much bigger picture; ‘The Internet of Things’. Objects connected to the internet, talking to you and you talking back. Sending a message to your central heating telling it to turn itself down. The fridge telling you what food needs to be consumed and by when. Your bicycle asking you to pump the tires. Yes, the future is going to get weird, but that’s a whole other article.

Let’s cast an eye back to the self. Is there a danger that people will be so obsessed with this data that it will have a detrimental effect on the way they live their lives and the things they are actually doing? Anything is possible. I’ve already noticed friends and colleagues who are more interested in talking about how far they have walked that week, than what they saw on those walks.

I don’t want to be on my deathbed one day and have my children present my life back to me on an infographic like some kind of post campaign analysis. I want to be able to recite my life back to them, using something other than binary code.

So whilst I can see the positives, we need to find the right balance. Living in a world where we are so concerned with walking a certain amount of steps per day and our optimum diet intake, all monitored from our wrists, so much so, that we forget to look beyond them, isn’t something I find too appealing.