To continue expanding the opportunities in connected technology without the burden of managing yet another device, some are looking to the emerging potential of wearable tech.

Despite criticisms, “internet of things”-enabled phones, computers, and other tools have undoubtedly enabled convenience and improved efficiencies for users. But these devices rely on near-constant human interaction to provide such a benefit, a model that risks social upheaval at scale. Wearable tech is striving to be a happy medium.

“We believe that we can empower clothing with technology to do far more than it ever has for you before and to really give you control back of your life,” said Billie Whitehouse (pictured), chief executive officer of Wearable X. She leverages her background in design to engineer tech-enabled clothing that provides all the benefits of artificial intelligence through a fluid integration of action and analysis for a future propelled by technology that moves with the wearer. 

Whitehouse sat down with Dave Vellante and Sonia Tagare, co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during theCUBE NYC event in New York. This week, theCUBE spotlights Billie Whitehouse in its Women in Tech feature.

Communicating through vibration

Though wearable technology has been available for years, its utility was long recognized solely by industries, such as military and healthcare, that could afford to implement and manage it at scale. With the resurgence of AI in the wake of tech’s data renaissance, IoT-enabled tools are quickly gaining popularity in the consumer market. Wearable devices are forecast to represent a market worth of $45 billion by the end of 2021 as the technology’s advancements enable a more manageable size and cost for mainstream users.

Devices like fitness trackers, smartwatches and tech-enabled glasses are among the most familiar to emerge from this growing trend, but Whitehouse is pushing wearable boundaries with her inventive applications for the technology. Her innovations in the field include a GPS-enabled blazer, Navigate, designed to direct travelers in new environments without requiring a handheld tool and multiple stops to verify directions, and the Alert Shirt, a jersey that transmits the sensations felt by players during a game to their fans. Both use haptic feedback, a vibration motivated by AI that communicates with the body.

Whitehouse’s latest design, NadiX, is a line of yoga apparel that guides users into poses through small devices that utilize the same vibrational tech. The haptic sensors provide feedback to a paired smartphone app that then gives users custom audio instructions.

“Similarly to a personal instructor, the vibrations will show you where to isolate, where to ground down, where to lift up or to rotate,” Whitehouse said.

Accelerometers are built in through the ankles, behind the knees and in the hip of the yoga pants, embedded at key hinge points to determine user poses and assess their successful completion.

“They connect and understand your body orientation and at the end ask you to address whether you made it into the pose or not by reading the accelerometer values,” Whitehouse said. “Then we give you vibrational feedback where to focus.”

The accelerometers and pulse device that carry that leggings’ Bluetooth module, battery and printed-circuit board are designed for easy washing and drying and to be unobtrusive to wearers. “We have tested on every body shape you can imagine across five different continents, because we wanted to make sure that the algorithms we built understand poses for everybody,” Whitehouse said.

How AI fits

Conceptualized as a tool to improve accessibility to wellness, NadiX was created to be inclusive and highly customizable, a feature artificial intelligence is uniquely equipped to provide. In addition to pants that direct movements for every individual body, the tech also provides in-app customizations that allow users to build a “class” fit to their needs.

“You can build a sequence of poses that is defined by you, for your body, instead of going to a class where you end up getting a terrible teacher or music that you don’t like,” Whitehouse said.

Even at $250 for the leggings (a higher-than-average price point for most yoga pants) and a $10-a-month subscription, the cost of NadiX rivals that of most yoga studios and actually offers a more cost-effective option for its convenience and constant availability.

“They’re using it at really interesting times of the day. Before seven a.m., in the middle of the day between 11 and three, and then after nine p.m. That just so happens to be when studios are shut,” Whitehouse said.

It’s constructed for maximum user-friendliness, and Whitehouse and her team are constantly reviewing device data for potential improvements.

“The biggest learning for us is that people are actually spending between 13 to 18 minutes inside the app,” she said. “They don’t necessarily want an hour-and-a-half class, which is what we originally thought. They want short, quick, easy-to-digest kind of flows.”

Although the immediate advantage for users may be one of convenience, NadiX can also offer long-term health benefits. “If you’re overextending a particular knee or an ankle, we can eventually tell you that very detailed,” Whitehouse said.

The potential for conscious design

Whitehouse originally developed NadiX to solve a challenge she discovered in her own yoga practice. “I was paying an extraordinary amount to go to classes, I was often in a class with another 50 people and not really getting any attention,” she said. “I was frustrated.”

The designer said her fashion background gives her a distinct perspective on creating IoT solutions, one that considers the most effective ways people and technology can intersect. Her strategy is one that appears to resonate. Since the development of her wearables, Whitehouse has been recognized as one of Business Insider’s 30 most important women under 30 in tech and Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business. Last year, Wearable X was named one of the magazine’s Most Innovative Companies in Fitness.

“It’s not just about individual problem solving. It’s a macro view,” she said. “I hope that more designers go into this space, because they have an ability to solve really interesting problems by asking empathetic questions.”

As she continues working to optimize wearable tools, Whitehouse adopts the approach held in Shinto, a traditional religion of Japan, that holds that every object has a soul. “If you’re designing for that object to have a soul, a personality, an ecosystem, a body area network for each object, then you can create this really interesting communication that is delightful, and not about domination,” she said.

Expansions in AI may still unsettle those who fear a dystopian endgame of unproductive humans sustained by soulless tech, but Whitehouse envisions a future of consciously designed “enchanted objects” that humans can communicate with seamlessly.

“It’s not about screens taking over the world and being in charge of you,” she said. “It’s about having this really beautiful interface between technology and objects.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of theCUBE NYC event:

Photo: SiliconANGLE