76 / 108
7 6
E L E C T R I C A L CO N N E C T I O N
A U T UMN 2 0 16
B
y now, you’ve probably heard
about the new ‘wearables’ craze.
In fact, many of you probably
wear a FitBit or know someone with an
Apple Watch – some of you may have
even seen Google’s stupid and pointless
Google Glass. But, what you may not
know is that wearable technology could
play a vital role in the future of health
and safety on a construction site.
In the US alone, the wearable market is
anticipated to be worth some $30 billion
by 2018. This has stoked competition in
all sectors of the market, but perhaps the
most interesting is industrial.
Industrial wearables (IWs) can be
broken into several categories – safety
devices (e.g. wristbands with inbuilt
GPS trackers), health trackers (e.g.
heart rate and blood pressure
monitors), communications devices
and security solutions.
For construction site workers,
especially those in remote areas,
the current interest in IW technology
appears to be surrounding ‘smart hats’.
According to eHatsystems, which is
getting ready to release its very own
‘smart hardhat’, the global smart hat
market is estimated to be worth $3
billion by 2020.
The eHat System comprises a smart
hat with several unique features. It’s a
safety hat with a light, a high definition
camera, microphone and headset and
some intelligent software that allows
it to communicate wirelessly to an
approved smart phone, back to your
subject matter specialist (who could be
at home or in the office thousands of
kilometres away), who can see almost
simultaneously what the wearer sees
through their PC or tablet.
“We believe that with the help of
THE MAD HATTERS OF
CONSTRUCTION
As the wearable technology
sector takes off, a handful of
innovators are turning their
attention to designing the
hardhat of tomorrow.
Paul
Skelton
reports.
eHat can communicate through the
wearer’s smart phone to an expert who
is sitting at their PC at a remote location.
TOOLS