Google's smart shoes and the futuristic possibilities
Google’s life sciences company Verily is about to make smart shoes which can monitor your weight, measure your movement and detect falls. Currently, the available smart shoes, smart soles and smart socks from other companies can monitor a variety of parameters related to activity but none of them monitor the person's weight. Such a feature might be very useful tool for the present generation, particularly because of fluctuating weight due to the modern day eating and activity habits.
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We love shoes getting equipped with such useful electronics. it opens up a range of possibilities to make things better in this age. Here are our ideas of what the future shoes might really be.
Weight management is turning out to be a tough task for many people. An app in the phone that connects to the smart shoes can tell if you are gaining weight or losing weight, plot the graphs, monitor per-meal and post-meal weight. With such data at their fingertips, the user can balance the intake of food. The app could also calculate and suggest user the number of steps he needs to walk to get to the right weight.
Your future smart shoe could even monitor the body temperature via the readings from your foot. A feature that can be particularly useful to sprinters is to analyze if the foot strikes on the track are correct.
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No single type of smart shoe that fits all purposes and this is where smart soles have significant advantage because they can be transferred into any shoe as required. Smart soles also reduce waterproofing costs and minimize electronic waste. What smart soles cannot do is transform the shoe in a way that is useful to the surface conditions. Consider an example where the person is walking on variable surfaces conditions and the shoes automatically adjusts its grip to suit the surface (If he steps into ice, the shoes could release the inbuilt spikes to keep the grip and retract them when not needed) .
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The scope of transforming itself can possibly create shoes that can be used for multiple activities. An example is your regular shoe transforming into a basketball shoe by inflating the multi-layered soles by filling them with air as and when needed.
Even if there transformation features are too futuristic, the ability to monitor performance accurately is near possibility. An example is your smart shoe monitoring your driving habits by analyzing acceleration and braking through pressure sensors in the shoe. It can tell you if you are accelerating too hard or breaking too late. On the flip side race drivers can use it to analyze their performance.
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Your smart shoe might not even need to be charged externally. The stamp of your foot can generate enough energy charge it and drive the electronics provided they have low power requirements. The future holds such good prospects for smart things, probably your smart shoes could also be your transportation gadget.
Authors | Arjun Vishnu
At SuperIdea.in, we solve tech problems with our creativity. You can ask us questions on WhatsApp or Twitter.
I am Vishnu, I like Linux, single-board computers, and cloud computing. I create the web/video content, and I also write for popular websites.
My younger brother Arjun handles image and video editing. We also run a YouTube Channel that's focused on technology.
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