Wearable Computing for the Internet of Things

In the next few years, the Internet of Things (IoT) will become a reality, merging the social, physical, and cyber worlds to enable new applications and forms of interaction between humans and connected, smart sensing and actuating devices. As billions of smart objects become deployed pervasively in the environment, users should be able to discover and interact with objects in their proximity in a seamless and transparent way. Although smartphones have become an extremely popular computing device, smart wearable devices, such as Google Glass and the Apple watch, are now providing even more effective means to bridge the gap between humans and smart objects. The authors analyze the characteristics of wearable applications for IoT scenarios and describe the interaction patterns that should occur between wearable or mobile devices and smart objects. The authors also present an implementation of a wearable-based Web of Things application used to evaluate the described interaction patterns in a smart environment, deployed within their department's IoT testbed.