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When everything including your wardrobe suddenly starts to think

Updated: Oct 19, 2020


You get up, and the scale said you gained another kilogram weight. The current lockdown brought the best out of you - chocolate and chips you got them all [3]. The scale immediately communicates your sweet temptation with the fridge. You want to get Tim Tams from the fridge, but the door is locked until you have completed your daily workout program. Perfect utopia or soon reality?


The Internet of Everything:

The Internet of Things (IoT) gives everyday objects access to the Internet [5]. This way, they can communicate with each other and with us [7]: The scale can alert the fridge about your sweet tooth. The IoT became only feasible after a cost decrease in IoT sensors and a mobile Internet that is available anywhere, anytime [2]. How it works is that sensors provide data that gets uploaded to a cloud where it gets analysed and streamlined to address customer or industry-specific needs [5] (see image 1).


Hexoskin Smart Clothes:

Smartwatches, smart rings and smart pants… the list goes on. Everything can be made smart. In the fashion industry, smart wearables such as the ProShirt from Hexoskin are particularly important (see image 2). Most IoT applications in fashion are health-related [4]: Hexoskin’s shirt, for instance, features an activity, heart and respiration sensor that collect data on a user’s heart rate and blood pressure [8]. Thereby, early signs of a heart attack can be detected [4]. Sounds too good to be true, right?



The thing is that you must remove the Hexoskin sensors before tossing the shirt into the washing machine [6]. Not very convenient and something that needs to be solved…


I also don’t want to feel like a robot [1] and personally find their shirt not aesthetically pleasing. Innovative ways to integrate technology into fashion items need to be found.


Other major concerns are: Where is all the data stored? Who has access to the data? How is the data used? Even worse: What happens when the devices start gossiping? As we can see, privacy risks are a major concern of IoT devices [4]…


I am convinced that we cannot stop IoT from entering our lives. What we can decide is how much control we want to give IoT over our lives. I want my Tim Tams whenever I feel like it - or perhaps better not…

 

Bibliography:

[1] Grass, J. M. (2017, February 22). Wenn das T-Shirt plötzlich selbst denkt . Retrieved from Welt : https://www.welt.de/icon/partnerschaft/article162218610/Wenn-das-T-Shirt-ploetzlich-selbst-denkt.html [Accessed: 19/09/2020]

[2] Rodrigues, J., Junqueira, H. A., Segundo, D., & Sabino, M. (2018, January 10). Enabling Technologies for the Internet of Health Things. IEEE Access, XX, 1-9.

[3] British Nutrition Foundation . (2020, June 22). BNF survey reveals stress, anxiety, tiredness and boredom are the main causes of unhealthy eating habits in lockdown. Retrieved from British Nutrition Foundation : https://www.nutrition.org.uk/healthyliving/hewathome/lockdownsurvey.html [Accessed: 22/09/2020]

[4] Xue, Y. (2019). A review on intelligent wearables: Uses and risks. Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, 287-294.

[5] Khan, J., & Yuce, M. (2019). Internet of Things (IoT): Systems and Applications. Singapore: Jenny Stanford Publishing Pte. Ltd.

[6] Fernández-Caramés, T., & Fraga-Lamas, P. (2018). Towards the Internet of Smart Clothing: A review on IoT wearables and garments for creating intelligent connected e-textiles. Electronics, 1-36.

[7] Raj, P., & Raman, A. (2017). The Internet of Things: Enabling technologies, platforms, and use cases. Boca Raton : Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

[8] Hexoskin. (2020). Hexoskin smart garments specifications . Retrieved from Hexoskin : https://www.hexoskin.com [Accessed: 20/09/2020]

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