What My Hearing Aid Taught Me About the Future of Wearables

I have a Bluetooth enabled hearing aid, and this guy is spot on with everything. I started off with an analog hearing aid -- when it broke, you took it in and got it fixed. Nowadays, my hearing aid syncs with my iPhone, syncs with my computer, remembers where I've manually set the volume and next time I'm there, re-sets it for me. My hearing is better than it's ever been -- but now when things go wrong, I often don't know. It's very frustrating.

But it's getting better every day. I have hope and optimism.

I recently gave a talk about hearing loss, and one of the things I said was that hearing aids make us practically cyborgs. If a hearing aid can help me with my profound hearing loss, imagine what we could do for hearing people -- make your already fantastic hearing even better? Sounds like a win/win to me.

I'm excited about the future -- but I also keep in mind that wearables pose many problems, just like this author pointed out. If we can solve those, we're well on our way to cyborg-hood...

That's an unfair assessment of tech as fashion right now. Personally, I think the Apple Watch looks ugly, but things like headphones (over-ear and Apple's prominent white in-ear) have been prominent and very popular, especially as a social/status signal. A lot of design work goes into technology.

I think we will continue to see successful tech follow that prominent path, but also the hidden one you suggest. Google Glass done right, hearing-enhancements that are barely visible, slim AR/VR goggles that are more like glasses, etc.

We won't see prominent tech/fashion fade away.