ABSTRACT
The foundations of wearable computing may lie in pocket and wrist-worn watches that were invented in the sixteenth century. Thorpe and Shannon are credited for being among the rst researchers attempting to build wearable computers in 1961. Their motivation was to beat statistics and increase chances of winning in card games and roulette (Thorp, 1998). While their wearable systems were rudimentary by today’s technology standards, they battled with integrating critical features that are key components of a wearable computer until today: sensing or information input, computing, and some form of actuation, feedback, or communication of retrieved information. Thorp and Shannon’s solution was based on game status input using a shoe-integrated button, computing using a carry-on device hidden in cloths, and information feedback using an audio ear pad, all to avoid being detected by the game clerk. Between the 1990s and today, wearable computers gained commercial and research interest and rst on-body computing products appeared in the markets. In the 1990s, onbody computer solutions were often derived from standard computing components available at the time, such as the half-keyboard (Matias et al., 1994) and backpack or side-case worn embedded computing units (Lizzy, 1993; Starner, 1993). As more integrated sensors became available, the view on market opportunities shifted from using on-body computers for mobile data entry applications, such as in warehouse management, to tness, sports, and the quantied self. However, a substantial share of today’s commercial on-body systems, such as the Nike running gear (shoe sensor plus mobile carry-on device), still follows a similar technical approach as in the early solution of Thorpe and Shannon: the on-body computer solution is centered around a mobile carry-on device that provides computing, and often also sensing and actuation/communication functions. Similarly, many research efforts during the past years considered smartphones and other carry-on devices as basis for wearable computers. Devices are often placed in pockets, attached to glasses, or strapped to body parts, without actually considering the integration into a wearable system.
