Smart technology is developing rapidly all around us. Companies in the construction industry are jumping on the trend and investing millions of pounds to provide an incredible array of developments to help improve the sector using wearable smart technology. Here are 4 wearable gadgets that have been developed to be used in construction projects.
Sony’s portable air conditioner unit (Reon Pocket)
Sony has created a portable air conditioner unit called Reon Pocket. This credit card size device can cool your body by 13 degrees celsius but can also warm your body up by 8 degrees celsius. With the purchase of the portable air conditioner unit, you receive a uniquely designed top which has a small pocket big enough for the unit to slip inside which is located at the back of the neck. From there you can control your Reon Pocket by your IOS or Andriod device, being able to turn the unit on and off but also allows you to change the temperature.
The Reon pocket isn’t available until March 2020 but only going to be for sale in Japan. Prices start around £95 and the more expensive package is around £140.
Smart clothing
Construction companies are investing a lot of their money into smart clothing. This kind of smart technology is best for workers working in extreme weather conditions. It helps boost efficiency, it ensures workers safety and it improves worker productivity.
Smart clothing includes:
- Heated jackets – Reflective heated jackets lasting a full workday. Keeps the workers warm within the cold months.
- Cooling vest – Pumps cooling liquid around the vest making sure the workers are cool enough to work and don’t become fatigued, slowing down production.
- Self-charging work boots – Lasts a full workday. They have a variety of sensors located within the boots that locate the user and has Wi-fi signals which provide data about the user.
Workers controlling the insights of the user will be able to measure physiological factors and improves situational awareness. This is a monthly subscription fee for data services which can be seen on an online dashboard. The data services provided on an online dashboard comes at a monthly subscription fee which allows you to measure the user’s physiological factors preventing them from becoming fatigued and improves situational awareness. Overall it increases productivity.
Apple Watch
There’s a new feature on the latest Apple Watch update (WatchOS 6) which can detect loud noises. This will help massively in the construction industry with workers being surrounded by noises they might not even hear themselves with the decibel being too high or low for a long period of time. A notification will pop up on your smartwatch which will then prompt the user to put hearing protection on to stop the damage progressing. This can cause long-lasting damage to your hearing so this is a great feature to activate on your smart Apple Watch. The new feature also tracks the duration of the exposure to the loud noise and a notification will pop up on your watch when it reaches a certain decibel for a set amount of time.
Smart hard hat
Smart hard hat is used for the safety of the worker. The safety detection system collects, delivers and analyzes data. It’s a useful system that gives you real-time awareness as well as data analysis which you can act upon immediately.
Benefits of using a smart hard hat:
- You are able to pinpoint each workers location within a foot distance.
- Helps the safety team to detects dangerous conditions.
- Captures videos of the user’s surroundings.
- Detects impacts round them.
- Sounds such as loud bangs.
- Sensors within the hat will detect toxic gasses alerting everyone involved that they are entering a danger zone.
If a worker was to fall over and hurt themselves it would send an instant alert to the safety team with the location of the fall and nearby workers who might be able to help to depend on the severity of the incident. All audio and video captured from the start of the project to the end will be monitored and will be able to help the worker to a certain extent.