Wearables—such as watches and clothing—are becoming increasingly popular. Many provide a way for people to track and measure certain health parameters in real time. Others offer specialized capabilities to augment or enhance traditional product features. And some wearables even offer extended capabilities with applications that allow the user to send email, make calls, search the internet, update social media and much more.
The wearables market is growing swiftly
A study by Precedence Research estimates that the market for global wearable technology will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 13.89% through the end of the decade. The market was valued at more than $121 billion in 2021 and experts say that value could grow to more than $392 billion by 2030.
The most common types of smart wearables include:
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- Hearables, including hearing aids and headphones that use AI, advanced sensors and other technologies to offer extremely granular control and functionality for each user.
- Watches, which can track physical activity and monitor health conditions as well as enable the user to do many of the same activities they could do on a smartphone or tablet.
- Patches, which can both monitor some health conditions and deliver drugs in a controlled fashion.
- Clothing, which integrates small electronics components into a garment that can track biometric information of the wearer.
- Implantables, that can measure specific conditions, such as a smart knee implant that monitors a patien’’s gait metrics, walking speed, range of motion and more.
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How wearables work
Most wearables use a variety of sensors and other technologies to gather and filter information directly from the wearer’s body or from the surrounding environment. Some wearables can process data and analyze it locally, feeding back results or alerts to the wearer immediately. Others can’t process data at the source because the sensors and storage devices are typically very small. Instead, they will transmit the data over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to a smartphone, cloud application or remote computer. There, the data will be analyzed and parsed for meaningful insights, which are then sent back to the wearer either through the wearable device itself or on a smartphone application. The original data and analysis results will typically be stored permanently in proprietary servers in a data center or the cloud.
Communication networks are critical to the success of wearables because they enable sensors and control systems to communicate with each other. With the emergence of 5G technology, these networks are becoming faster and better able to support advanced wearables—with lower end-to-end latency.
Growing demands for better embedded data storage
As wearable technology evolves and users begin to expect advanced capabilities and features, the demand for reliable embedded data storage grows. The types of data wearables can capture are often small, such as heart rate or steps walked in a day and don’t mean much on their own. The real value lies in collecting that small data over time and analyzing changes to deliver meaningful feedback to the wearer.
Edge computing is making it possible for more data to be collected, stored and analyzed locally instead of having to transmit it back to a central repository. But that also means the wearable’s internal data storage will need to grow and evolve as well. The key here is to reduce latency at endpoints, which is where wearables collect data, while boosting throughput between edge to cloud and edge to endpoints.
To be most effective, that on-board data storage needs to deliver:
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- Low latency – part of the value of wearables is that they can provide real-time information, so data transmission and access needs to be seamless
- High capacity – wearables can capture dozens, if not hundreds, of data points and that data needs to be stored at least temporarily in the device. This requires a lot of capacity while keeping physical drive sizes ultra-small.
- Reliable performance – wearables are expected to capture and process/transmit data for long periods of time and in all sorts of environments. Smart watches, for example, need to work reliably and consistently despite extreme temperatures, excessive dust or moisture and rough handling or vibrations.
- Robust security – much of the data collected and tracked by wearables can be considered confidential and highly sensitive. Data storage should be secure enough to withstand malicious attacks and hacking.
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Phison is an industry leader in reliable embedded NAND Flash storage
Phison is a market leader in NAND Flash controllers and embedded storage applications for USB, SD, eMMC, PATA, SATA, PCIe and UFS interfaces. Its commitment and investment in continuing R&D puts the company at the cutting edge of emerging technologies, including embedded data storage.
Phison embedded storage products are available across a wide variety of performance, power consumption, storage capacity and different form-factors (product dimensions).
From wearables that require extreme power efficiency and tiny form factors (such as eMMC, ePoP and UFS) to high-performance robust embedded computers equipped with PCIe NVMe SSDs, Phison has a NAND Flash storage solution that fits the needs of your application.
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