When socks are poured with high technology

There is always something unique about the innovation perspective of technology companies. In recent years, many companies have set their sights on socks.

A company called Heapsylon has developed a Sensoria smart sock. The company says it can store and register data to help improve running efficiency, as well as measure and record the user's calorie expenditure. It has 3 sensors attached to the bottom to measure the user's foot pressure when walking and running. If the user is monitored to put weight on the soles of the feet, or the power is unbalanced, the socks will give a prompt through the mobile phone.

Smart technology company Slock has also launched a "wake-up artifact". Slock smart socks are actually an alarm clock to wear on your feet. It looks like a pair of socks, heelless and fingerless, but with an additional motor capable of delivering four levels of vibration. As long as you set an alarm clock on the APP, when the time comes, the socks will directly start scratching their feet, "violent" to cure laziness.

Even the US streaming platform Netflix has launched a sock DIY solution that senses the body's reactions, which automatically pauses episodes when the user is asleep. The smart socks, which can manipulate video playback, have attracted a lot of attention and are considered "quite creative". However, unfortunately, Netflix did not launch a finished product, but only launched a solution, and only users with strong hands-on ability can make their own.

In addition, there are baby socks that can monitor the baby's physical indicators, positioning socks that specifically prevent the loss of dementia groups, thermostatic socks that can prevent diabetic foot, mood socks that can change color according to the occasion...

Wearable device manufacturers "like" socks, it sounds a little outrageous, and it makes sense to think about it.

Wearable devices, as the name implies, are portable hardware that can be worn directly on the body and achieve specific functions through software support and data interaction. It began with the debut of Google Glass in 2012, so that year is also known as the "first year of smart wearable devices" in the industry. At that time, some industry media commented that smart wearable devices will become the next hot spot in the smart terminal industry.

IDTechEx, a well-known market research firm, predicts that by 2025, the overall market value of the wearable device industry will approach $70 billion. As far as the smart socks market segment is concerned, there is no authoritative data yet, but many institutions believe that the upward trend is obvious and the future prospects are promising.

Although it has only 10 years of development history, wearable devices still walk out of a clear demand change curve.

In the early days of its birth, as a new gadget, wearable devices urgently need to solve the problem of market development and cultivation. Therefore, the design should not only emphasize the sense of technology, but also have a sufficient sense of presence, that is, it must be cool enough to be recognized at a glance. At the same time, technically speaking, the original wearable device basically uses similar materials and technical principles as mobile phones, but with sensors, so watches, bracelets, glasses with fashion attributes, hard materials, technical transformation difficulty and relatively low objects naturally become the best choice.

Today, wearable devices have entered the homes of ordinary people. As an "ordinary" consumer electronic product, it is no longer the logo of science and technology experts, but has begun to move closer to the direction of daily necessities. This means that wearable devices no longer need to brush the sense of existence, and senseless design is the future development direction. In the words of Apple CEO Tim Cook, "No device can convince a child who doesn't wear glasses or wristbands to use this product." "Instead of pursuing deliberate wear, upgrading daily necessities to smart products is a better choice." This is also the fundamental reason why smart socks are emerging.

In addition to the changes in the core needs of users, the iteration and upgrading of technology is also an important support. According to a paper in the industry academic journal Nature Electronics, wearable devices faced a huge problem in the early days of their birth - if the device contains a large number of sensor arrays, some of them will interfere with each other. The researchers' initial solution was to develop self-correcting mechanisms to identify and tune for sensor errors by using self-supervised machine learning algorithms. Now, a more advanced solution is ripe for the introduction of piezoresistive fibers, which are fiber materials made of non-conductive thermoplastic polymers that prevent interference between sensors. This material can be integrated into traditional clothing production, and the woven fabric is soft to the touch, malleable and breathable.

Now that the technology has matured, will clothes be the next target for tech companies after socks?

The answer may still depend on presence.

Clothing is a fashion industry that needs to be constantly updated. From the current industry architecture alone, smart clothing obviously can't do this. Some insiders said that the current research focus of smart clothing is still on "how to achieve a more suitable design scheme for the human body and provide wearers with a more comfortable and data-intensive wearing experience", that is, it is still in the stage of focusing on the technology itself, and has not yet reached the step of considering fashion needs. What's more, even if the smart clothing industry can one day be closely integrated with the design industry, it will not necessarily be able to promote it on a large scale. After all, trends are always changing. In the short term, consumers are unlikely to buy a cabinet of smart clothing and change them every day.

Socks are not like clothes, do not need to carry too much fashion demand, either covered by pants, or covered by shoes - functional requirements are strong, and can perfectly disappear from sight, which may be the innate advantage of socks to intelligence. (Source: Economic Daily Author: Xiao Han)