'Earworn Wearables' will save the day (wireless earbuds, but cool name for your D&D halfling) The wearables market is popping, if you believe the latest report from entrail prodders at Gartner: the sector will might be worth an impressive $52bn by 2020, up from $32bn in 2018. Gartner predicts much of that expansion will be driven by what it deems "earworn wearables". It uses this somewhat clunky term to describe the …
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I the El Reg has whacked the nail on the head, qll of these predicktions have about the same reliability as a shaman on 'shrooms.
" I saw a crow sitting on a blackened perch in a dark room last night and all I could see of it was it's coal black eyes.......when the sun sets tonight it may never rise.... blah blah.."
"They're not the right words? Headphones are things you wear over your head... watches are devices whose purpose is to tell the time. Using those terms for anything that goes in your ears or on your wrist is inaccurate."
Simples .....
Earphones [covers *both* in the ear & on the ear types]
Wristband x [where 'x' is the function]
All I can say is 'Earworm Wearables' is more accurate !!!! :)
"All I can say is 'Earworm Wearables' is more accurate !!!! :)"
I think most of us who wear hearing aids would agree with 'earworms' - the receiver-in-ear types, in particular, can worm their way quite deep into your ears during the course of the day.
I had to lookup what "head-mounted displays" were, and I'm most disappointed that it isn't either a projector shining on nearby walls or people, or technology to display images on your face (a great saving in makeup, or lucrative if you sell it as advertising space).
"Tommy Jeans [..] included chips in some of its products that allow the user to track how frequently they're wearing a particular garment"
That is what we are polluting the environment for now ? A chip that can tell you how many times you wore something, wow. Gobsmacking. How utterly useless.
You want to put intelligence in clothes ? Make chips that can tell if the shirt goes with the pants. Make chips that bleep when garish color combinations are being chosen. Make chips that tell you "Alert : clothes tissue is stretching beyond advisable limits - choose larger size".
That would be smart.
Chris G,
"A sure fire seller for the ladies and probably a fair few men,would be a smart chip to answer the question " Does my arse look big in this?""
You do know that the 'Smart Chip' would be programmed to *always* answer 'Yes' ..... as this would double sales at least !!! :)
P.S. With most women it would be 'Triple' as they would buy one item in the larger size (just 'in case' the answer given by the smart chip is right) and one item in size 8* (because 'I always used to be a size 8*' and I am *sure* it is just a sizing error !!! :) )
* substitute whatever size they were at 'true age' 16 :)
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Is because these new devices are fundamentally more fragile and have a much lower MTBF?
After all, things like Apple's earbuds are absolute miracles of modern technology: they pack in a microphone, a speaker, a bluetooth receiver *and* a wireless charging system and a battery. Oh, and optical sensors, accelerometers and various other gadgets intended to support the "It Just Works" Apple ethos.
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/AirPods+Teardown/75578
That's a huge number of components - and with just a 5 hour battery life, the battery may well be charged/discharged multiple times a day, which takes it's toll on their capacity. E.g.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/03/11/heres-why-your-airpods-battery-life-is-getting-worse-and-what-you-can-do-about-it
Meanwhile, my old fashioned wired headphones just have a couple of speakers and a bit of wire. And cost significantly less, to boot ;)
The other advantage of your old fashioned wired headphones it that you probably don't look like an utter twat whilst wearing them... probably. I still use wired headphones because for me it's all about the sound reproduction rather than the aesthetic.
> The other advantage of your old fashioned wired headphones it that you probably don't look like an utter twat whilst wearing them... probably
No more or less than I do when not wearing them ;)
It's mostly about practicality, for me. I can use my wired headphones on my antique iPod, my phone and my laptop without having to prat about with Bluetooth[*].
At work, I spend most of my day listening to music while writing comments on The Regist^H beavering away at code. Having to stop every few hours to recharge would mean getting (even more) distracted by the constant background chatter/banter in our openplan office. And equally, using a wired connection means there isn't any additional power drain on the device playing the music.
Away from work, I generally don't use headphones, unless travelling long distance. In which case, the same recharge-time and power-drain concerns apply as per above - plus, I'm not too keen on flashing potentially expensive tech around, as it's a potential weighting factor in the "muggable" calculations performed by unsavory people in many major cities[**].
[*] Said laptop is an IBM Thinkpad running Ubuntu. Admittedly, I haven't actually tried to use BT on this beastie, but it's been a royal PITA with many other things and BT is notoriously difficult to get working on Linux...
[**] The bars in Barcelona are all in the "old town", which is a warren of little passages. Once night falls, there are often people on the corners of these passages, looking out for tourists. Some sell beer or water, some sell more interesting goods and services. And more than a few just watched with a very calculating eye. I saw a lot of "abandoned" handbags and got followed more than a few times by increasingly aggressive/pushy people. It's generally ok if you're in a group, but if you're walking around solo, I wouldn't even pull a phone out, never mind using earphones of any kind...
I am not convinced Xiaomi's earthings at £25, being a lot cheaper than Apple's £250 earthings, is a sound basis for predicting a multi-billion boom in the sector.
I'll stick to my £2 Asda earthings which are surprisingly good for the price, and far better than the wireless ones I have.
There's no need to charge them, no great loss or cost if I lose them, and if one does drop out an ear it's attached to the other like gloves tied through a Parka, and tied to the player so little chance of loss anyway. And they work with everything I own without requiring anything to have a Bluetooth interface.
I'll wear them proudly while taking my Casio off my wrist to check my pulse after a jog round the block the good old fashioned way.
Still; I'd love to hear Gartner on proposals for tampons without string.
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