From Fashion to Function: The Quiet Rise of Smart Jewellery

Here’s the thing about wearable tech: the smaller they get, the better they fit into our lives. Tech companies have spent decades fighting for your wrists and your fingers. But now they are finding their way into our ears, neck and more- where tiny sensors can track more than we can imagine.

These functional fashion accessories can nudge us to sleep better, breathe deeper and even notice when we need to drink more water. The latest sign of this shift is a new generation of smart earrings: the Lumia 2, which hides the sensors at the back of the earring and treats style as a feature rather than an afterthought.

But What is Smart Jewellery?

Smart jewellery is any piece of accessory that includes sensors, a battery and software to collect data on your health, activity or surroundings. They can be rings, necklaces, bracelets or earrings. 

While smart rings like Oura and Ultrahuman have become a part of our everyday lives, smart earrings are a concept that is new and unheard of. Lumia 2 combines aesthetics and tech and keeps the sensors at the back of the earring, which lets the visible piece stay fashionable and discreet. 

The sensors at the back of the earring measure blood flow, temperature, sleep patterns and more. The whole idea of smart jewellery is to look discreet while also keeping a tab on your health.

How Brands Merge Fashion with Technology- And Who’s Getting It Right?

Brands that approach smart jewellery fall into two categories: fashion-first houses that keep design and look at the front end, and wellness/tech startups that obsess over sensors and metrics and want to reach a wider audience.

A few notable examples are the Oura and Ultrahuman smart rings, Bellabeat women’s health bracelet and Ringly smart rings. Many fashion labels like Michael Kors, Swarovski, Tory Burch, Gucci and more have experimented with their designs on wearable tech.

The next wave of discrete wearable tech comes with the recent Lumia launch. The smart earrings claim to measure real-time blood flow to the head, sleep, temperature and cycle tracking features. All of this is packed in an earring back so that the face of the earrings is fully customisable. The product received massive fundraising and press covering it being called “world’s smallest wearable”.

Key Features of Smart Jewellery

Not all smart earrings are the same, but some of the common features include:

• Continuous health metrics – PPG-derived metrics (photoplethysmogram), such as heart rate, blood flow, skin temperature, motion, and sleep detection, are continuously monitored by smart jewellery.
• Cycle and readiness tracking – temperature and sleep data are compiled to estimate menstrual cycle phases and recovery status after sleep.
• Comfort-first approach – smaller batteries, lightweight and discreet-looking are some of the features of modern-day wearable tech, which can easily make us switch looks without compromising on health insights.
• Companion apps with insights – all the data received from these wearables is displayed on their companion apps. Trends, suggestions and sometimes clinical research backing that interpret this raw data are what take each wearable to the next level.

Challenges and Limitations of Smart Jewellery

Smart jewellery not just looks good, it also gives us insights into our health that we wouldn’t have known otherwise. But this data does not come without its limitations. Trying to squeeze clinically meaningful sensors into a tiny form factor is difficult as it is; combine that with motion, outside light disrupting the sensors, poor skin contact and tiny batteries, and you can limit the quality of the data.

The small form factor also means smaller batteries, which makes it harder to balance battery life, waterproof rating, wear time, weight and comfort. While most consumer jewellery tries to avoid any claims of a “medical diagnostics”, if they do want their health insights to stand out, they enter a medical device territory, which may require FDA clearance. 

Use Cases

• We all know how to switch up our looks from day to night. Smart jewellery helps us take that to the next level. It can be worn in an office and look equally good for a night out, without compromising on the data.
• Women who want to track their fertility in order to conceive or just keep tabs on their cycles can easily integrate smart jewellery without wearing bulky smartwatches.
• Similarly, for people who don’t want to wear a bulky watch to bed, smart jewellery is the next best thing to invest in.
• Fashion-forward consumers who want a nudge into a healthier lifestyle are the main focus of this category.

Wrap Up

Smart jewellery combines consumers who want a fashionable, discreet-looking wearable while also not compromising on their health and data. The industry is expected to be valued at USD 890.8 Million by 2030.

While we can expect smaller and smarter sensors, AI insights and interpretation of this raw data is what will clearly try to limit the challenges faced by smart jewellery. But the smartest winners will be the companies that nail comfort, accuracy, battery life and aesthetics all at once. 

We’re already at a point where if someone asks, “Where’s your wearable?”, the answer is “It’s my earring” with the Lumia 2. We can’t wait to see what’s next!

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