The Future of Wearable Tech Is Called a Hearing Aid By Josh Dean

The Future of Wearable Tech Is Called a Hearing Aid.
Even if your ears are fine, you might want a device that translates 27 languages, tracks fitness, and monitors vital signs.

In the next five to seven years, your hearing aids are going to be like Jarvis from Iron Man,” It’s going to be your personal assistant. It’s going to know more about what’s going on with your body that you want to know—your heart rate, blood pressure, glucose. The ear is the new wrist.

This is the kind of ridiculous slogan that only someone inside the bubble of wearable med tech could use unironically. But it’s not an insane idea. The ear is where pediatricians get your kid’s temperature. It’s an ideal spot to measure heart rate and equilibrium, which is how the Livio also provides fall detection for wobbly seniors. If a user doesn’t tell the Thrive app that he or she is fine within seconds after a fall, it will call for help.