The wearables market is perhaps $3 billion to $5 billion today, rising to perhaps $30 billion to $50 billion over the next three to five years, the analysts forecast, adding that there may be upward of 15% of smartphone owners who end up buying a wearable.
The question is will the wearable electronics be reliable? Reliability is defined as the measure of a product’s ability to perform its specified function, in the customer’s use environment, over the required or desired lifetime. From this perspective we need to think about what the product is supposed to do, where is it going to be used, and how long should it last?
Wikipedia defines wearable electronics as “miniature electronic devices that are worn by the bearer under, with or on top of clothing.” DfR has come up with what we feel is a better definition. “Technology attached to the human body or clothing that allows the wearer to monitor, engage with, and control devices, themselves, or their social network.
Wearable electronics falls into the categorization of “Next Generation Technologies.” DfR defines these technologies as those the supply chain or the user will implement because they are cheaper, faster, stronger, etc.
One of the most common drivers for failure is inappropriate adoption of new technologies. As most of us have little or no influence over the packaging technologies chosen for implementation we need to be aware of the pitfalls and what actions need to be taken to assure that the new technologies are reliable. As typically occurs with new markets of electronics, there are several issues that need to be addressed from a reliability perspective to assure these new applications are safe and reliable.
