Editorial
Upright’s Pilot Studies Demonstrate how Wearables Increase Office Worker Productivity
Written by Special Guest Blogger Thomas Dawidczyk, Analyst, Lux Research What They Said Upright partnered with Ernst & Young Israel to study the link between posture and productivity. The study used Upright’s adhesive posture monitoring wearable that incorporates haptic feedback to improve posture and alleviate lower back pain. After a few weeks using Upright’s device, 75% of the 31 Ernst & Young employees in the study experienced improved posture and decreased back pain. Over half of the participants felt more alert and productive at work due to their improved posture. Additionally, 85% of participants became more aware of their posture and 71% of participants felt more confident when they had good posture. Employees were surveyed about the effects of using Upright on back pain, productivity, and posture throughout the survey. To improve posture, the employees trained two to four times a week for six weeks starting out with just five minutes a day. They used Upright while sitting at their desk, eating lunch, or attending a meeting. What We Think Upright has performed other case studies with SAP Software Solutions and Siemens. In all cases, these companies have a large percentage of their workforce that sits in front of computers […]
2 min read
Making the Case for Wearables in Your Organization
The marriage of business and IT Making wearables a success in the enterprise does not fall on any one individual or organization; it requires a team effort across business units within an organization seeking to use these devices, as well as a group mentality among the various stakeholders in the enterprise wearable tech space. Within an organization that is evaluating wearables, IT needs to work closely with business leaders and vice versa to avoid failure. Multiple perspectives are necessary to plan and execute a wearable program, including from IT (technical), the business side (say, operations) and then, of course, real users. As PowerStream’s James Ilari said on a panel at EWTS ’16 this past summer: “Business units and IT are often on different ends of the spectrum, and don’t know what [the other] is doing. [IT needs] to work with the business side, engage them and get them to be more proactive.” As the team lead of Emerging Technologies and Strategy within Information Services at PowerStream, James did just that, partnering with a business liaison – a well-respected senior worker – to bridge the divide. In addition to observing workers and thinking about how to help them, James’ team spoke […]
5 min read
EnterpriseWear: 2016 Year in Review
2016 was the year that, yes, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality dominated the conversation: New headsets were released, Snapchat and Pokémon Go introduced AR to the masses, and a Magic Leap teaser video sparked both enthusiasm and skepticism. Have AR and VR truly arrived? Arguably, not yet, though many enterprises are certainly open to them and recognize their potential. Both technologies have a long way to go still (yes, we’d all like untethered VR and a wider FOV for the HoloLens); but whether you’re Team Augmented or Team Virtual, new realities will change the way we view and share information, create, collaborate and work from now on. Smartwatches and other wrist-worn devices, on the other hand, were undoubtedly on the back burner this past year, with media attention still mainly relegated to the consumer (fitness) realm. Read on for our end-of-the-year rundown of the top use cases and solution developments to come out of 2016. A number of enterprises made headlines for experimenting with and adopting wearables in 2016 Lee Company, a major residential and commercial heating, cooling, appliance and facilities solutions company, set the bar with the largest enterprise rollout of wearable technology to date—500 pairs of Vuzix M100 […]
7 min read
Beyond Smartphone Clones: How Wearables Deliver Actual Value and Reshape Tomorrow’s Supply Chain
Written by Special Guest Blogger Noa Ghersin, Wearables Analyst, Lux Research Lux Research recently held a webinar on the topic of how to build and identify good wearable solutions. The “Beyond Smartphone Clones: How Wearables Deliver Actual Value and Reshape Tomorrow’s Supply Chain” webinar can be downloaded here. Key takeaways from the presentation are described below. Where most wearable electronics have gone wrong Since the introduction of wearables, these devices have acted as a supplement to or extension of smartphones. However, with the likes of the Apple Watch and Fitbit – today’s most iconic wearables – being crappy versions of the smartphone, it is no surprise that wearables are viewed today as little more than nice-to-have gadgets. Moreover, developers of these solutions have witnessed low sales and even drops in stock. Therefore, there is a need to re-think how to go about building wearable devices. Beyond smartphone clones: What good wearable electronics actually look like Few wearable electronics are starting to deliver real value to users; from enhancing athletic performance, improving working efficiency and safety, to facilitating effective and convenient wellness programs. It is those wearables that look to augment the human – whether it be by improving volleyball training […]
4 min read
Enterprise Wearable Tech Challenges Ahead – Devices Still Lacking
Wearables in the workplace are inevitable–this much I think we can agree upon, if only because the devices are hands-free (making them essential for deskless workers.) In addition, we can agree that a user-centric approach to both the hardware itself and its applications for enterprise is mandatory; and that there are some very viable and effective uses for the technology in business and industry today (though the ROI may be somewhat subjective.) And yet, the road to mainstream enterprise wearables is not without (more than) a few remaining bumps. So what are the challenges ahead? In this post, we’ll cover an obvious one: Many of the devices are still lacking. Pilots fail because the hardware is not completely reliable, sufficiently ruggedized, ergonomic or intrinsically safe; because the devices do not meet industry regulations, require strong connectivity and thus are not field-proof, etc. Take it from Mubarik Choudry of Shell: “It’s not going to be easy to deploy these solutions out in the [oil] field. We’ve received positive feedback in testing with users but there are definite constraints [including] wearability, reliability…the frustrating part is that the hardware market isn’t moving as fast as we would like for our environment.” In addition […]
2 min read
Enterprise Wearables: Easy IoT?
Wearables are part of a much larger picture, but the applications don’t have to be complicated Participants from June’s EWTS 2016 are looking beyond just wearables, towards an entire ecosystem of connected devices that will comprise the (smart) workplace of the future. But this ecosystem of devices, including wearables and other sensors and mobile devices – and otherwise known as the Internet of Things – doesn’t have to be so complex. It can be as simple as a sensor on a person or piece of equipment. As several speakers emphasized, just knowing where workers, machines and vehicles are located can save your organization time and money and manpower–a simple sensor can save millions of dollars. John Simmins of EPRI described wearable technology as one side of a six-sided coin, which is a great metaphor for IoT. We’re not talking about isolated “things” but rather multiple devices that need to interact and work as a system to provide context to the end user. Brian Laughlin of Boeing put it quite elegantly, describing IoT as “putting sensors out into the environment, into the real world, and enabling disparate but connected things to coalesce in time and space for an event to occur.” […]
3 min read
Enterprise Wearables: The Big Picture
Wearables are part of a much bigger picture but applications don’t have to be complicated Wearables are definitely part of a larger picture but as we progress towards a true IoT, there are some obvious, even unassuming, enterprise wearable applications today. At EWTS 2016, Brian Ballard of APX Labs brought up using wearables to replace simple paper processes–this is one of the greatest opportunities offered by the technology today. It may surprise you to learn that many industries and major enterprises are still very paper-driven, relying upon paper work instructions, paper checklists, and the filling out of paperwork to drive operations. Brian talked about identifying and “disrupting ineffective processes that exist today,” giving pharma and aerospace as two examples of industries that are just now replacing current paper processes and basic electronic processes in secure areas. This is a momentous first step that companies are making today – replacing paper in the workplace with wearable tech – and the savings are “astronomical.” According to Vincent Higgins of Optech4D, Oil and Gas is another industry surprisingly driven by paper work instructions. And according to AGCO’s Peggy Gulick and Dr. Jorg Schulte of BMW, manufacturing similarly relies upon rather primitive paper and […]
4 min read
Enterprise Wearables Today: Determining ROI
Interesting Takes on Determining ROI How do you determine the success of a wearable pilot? This is a key challenge faced by enterprises today in the still-early days of the technology, for it’s not always a simple matter of numbers and percents. At EWTS 2016, real end users shared first-hand experiences of and outside-the-box thinking about gauging the ROI of wearables in your business. When we talk about ROI, we usually talk in terms of concrete numbers. But what we heard from a number of enterprise users is that it’s often not easy to pin down numbers with wearable technology; sometimes it’s more practical – even necessary – to qualify than to quantify the success of these devices in your organization. Peter Godino, Hershey Company: “There is always an ROI when you’re improving the way you do something [but] there are some things I don’t like to put KPIs to. I know there’s an enhancement. Sometimes it’s improving the quality of life for your engineering team or the people on the floor. A lot of metrics cannot be expressed as a dollar return, but we’ve seen a lot of benefits from wearable technology. Line uptime will be one of the […]
4 min read
Practical Advice for Enterprise Wearables
Recognizing what is cool versus what is possible today Getting practical: No-nonsense, real-world, from-the-trenches advice and tips In sharing their experiences with wearable tech, the presenters and panelists at EWTS 2016 divulged some great advice for those enterprise representatives in the audience responsible for evaluating and piloting wearables. The speakers were realistic about the abilities and shortcomings of current technology offerings, as well as the difficulties of implementing wearables in the workplace today. In this post, we will share some of their practical advice, tips, best practices, and lessons learned. Zebra Technologies’ Tom Bianculli kicked off the event with a spectacular keynote in which he said, “Don’t do it because you can but because it’s the right thing to do.” Of course he was referring to adopting wearable technology in your organization; and if you were to take just one piece of advice away from EWTS ’16, it would be wise to soak in Tom’s words. Zac Penix of AES shared a few practical tips, including keeping things simple (it doesn’t take a complicated wearable to give workers the info they need to stay safe); as well as a useful heads-up: “No matter how much or how well you plan, […]
3 min read
Don’t Wait on Adopting Wearables in Your Business
Recognizing what is cool versus what is possible today
5 min read
New Realism in Enterprise Wearables
Recognizing what is cool versus what is possible today Should you wait on piloting or even adopting? No. Today’s hardware/solutions may not be perfect, but there are benefits to be had now Multiple speakers at EWTS 2016 asserted that there are effective enterprise wearable solutions available today. They talked about devices that are simple yet make a real difference – “a simple thing that does one thing really well” (Zac Penix, AES Corportation) – and strongly advised enterprises to do the “hard work of implementation” now as opposed to five years from now. Atheer’s Christian Prusia said let’s “focus on the now:” What are the enterprises of today leveraging? What use cases are they most focused on? What problems are they solving right now? So are there any “slam-dunk” wearables today? Yes, but they may not be the ones you imagine. In our last post, we also quoted Zac of AES for highlighting the basic company ID badge as a great wearable when made smart with sensors: “Old-school tech like RFID badges are great but upgraded a bit with wearable activity monitors, fall-detection sensors…It’s not glamorous but it’s effective.” Dawn Bridges of Jacobs Engineering claimed that “a wearable that recognizes […]
5 min read
Startups Monitor Emotions to Optimize Consumer Value, Vehicle Safety, and Employee Performance
Written by Special Guest Blogger Mark Bünger, VP of Research, Lux Research Many of the advances in Internet of Things (IoT)-based data gathering and analytics sound like Orwellian spying. And indeed, nearly every week brings new instances of devices streaming sensor measurements to a cloud-based server (Bluetooth-based smart locks, for example), where vulnerabilities compromise the endpoint, transit or storage; and intentional system features exploit users’ unintentional or even willful release of data for ethically-dubious ends. Now the addition of affective computing, a branch of artificial intelligence (AI) geared towards sensing and emulating human emotion, is adding a new layer of controversy in spaces like: Enjoying entertainment in smart homes. Affective computing startups are entering the home with social robots like Jibo, but also in ways that are less obvious (or voluntary) for consumers: Last year, Samsung had to walk back smart television “spying” features that sent not only voice commands but also incidental conversation back to its servers. Today, Affectiva is working with consumer goods and media companies like Disney, CBS, Coca-Cola and Unilever to measure the effectiveness of ads in sparking emotional responses. The company, which raised $14 million earlier this year, has now launched a mobile-device-based version of […]
4 min read
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