Wearables need integration and compelling use cases, otherwise I won't care

Roland Moore-Colyer wants a better wearable tech ecosystem to fuel the gadget world

Wearables: one of the technology industries biggest boondoggles or life-improving gadgets? That is the question.

Stumble into any technology hardware conference and you will encounter at least three smartwatches, two fitness bands and maybe a fresh take on smart glasses that may make the wearer feel like Tony Stark - but look stark raving mad.

Being a technology journalist, I'm innately attracted to anything new, shiny and arguably a bit pointless. And I am not alone; many fellow reporters and reviewers have been spotted salivating over Samsung Gear smartwatches, looking longingly at LG wearables, or being rocked to the core by the Apple Watch.

Yet, as much as I get the tech flutters when a big gadget showcase is streamed from San Francisco, complete with over-enthusiastic executives bouncing on stage to extoll the virtues of a reimagined stylus, I am yet to be convinced by wearable technology.

Yes, a smartwatch can ping messages and email notifications to your wrist without requiring you to fish around for your phone. But the current crop of smartphones are so slim, light and beautifully designed that I'm happy to dip my hand into my pocket and give my Samsung Galaxy S6 a little fondle and tap.

Fitness bands aside, I cannot see how I would justify sinking several hundred pounds on a device that is the very definition of diminished returns.

Others in the industry proudly display their Apple Watches, but no-one has managed to convince me that it is anything more than a purchase to satisfy the new gadget lust that accompanies most tech product launches.

This is the problem with wearables across the board: there is simply no compelling case for them. Smartwatches are, at best, a nice-to-have, smart glasses almost guarantee social shunning, and other wearables are clunky or highly specialist.

I'm a true believer in the power of technology to revolutionise industry and society, and I find this quite frustrating.

The big technology players tout wearables as great for the consumer and enterprise worlds alike, but I have yet to see a compelling example of them being put to good use.

Several companies have told me that their wearables are suitable for hazardous industrial situations, but when I ask for real-world examples of their use I am met with the corporate equivalent of a shrug.

Sure, the medical world makes use of wearable sensors to remotely monitor a patient's vital signs, and firefighting services have helmets with heads up displays to relay information, but these are very specialist examples without any way for the technology legitimately to filter down into wider markets.

So there is a lot of interesting and very clever technology effectively left out in the cold, with nowhere to go beyond the grips of early-adopter enthusiasts. But I am hoping that this is about to change.

The Ministry of Defence recently showcased a wearables-laden future uniform for British Army soldiers that hints at how wearables can be more compelling when integrated.

The Future Solider Vision uniform was constructed from mostly concept technology, but the smartwatch and smart glasses are not too far away from the gadgets offered to consumers.

This is promising for the future of wearables, as the uniform demonstrates how wearables can be used together to create a more persuasive case.

I am not likely to need full battlefield situation awareness kit in my day-to-day life, but having a pair of smart glasses that relay heart rate, location, speed and step count data harvested from a smartwatch would certainly be useful when I'm running.

Perhaps that data could then be fired up into the cloud, and aggregated with information about my diet recorded every time I eat via a camera in a pair of smart glasses which snaps pictures of my meals and analyses their calorific value.

This data could then be used to track my health and, once anonymised, be mixed with other people's data and used to fuel medical research.

It is this integration and ecosystem that could really take wearable technology from slightly kitsch gadgets to data-driven devices that aid daily life without being obtrusive.

So come on Apple, Samsung, Google and the startup community: you have the technology, now give me a good reason to care.