AT&T Plans To Sell Health-Tracking Clothing
Under its emerging devices unit, AT&T has begun selling everything from pill containers that emit wireless reminders to GPS-enabled dog collars. Next up: clothes that track the wearer’s heart rate, body temperature and other vital signs and upload the results to a web portal.
Glenn Lurie, President of AT&T’s Emerging Devices division, said bio-tracking clothes tie in to the burgeoning “e-wellness” trend. “People want this kind of feedback about their health,” he said in an interview. “Automatically pushing information to a vertically integrated site makes things easier.”
These non-phone wireless devices also help AT&T’s bottom line. They are one way carriers can make money off their networks in a country that already has 104% wireless penetration or more than one wireless subscription per person. During AT&T’s most recent financial quarter, the telco added 1.04 million connected devices, beating analyst estimates. The revenue helped AT&T meet analyst expectations despite the pressures of not having a new Apple iPhone to sell during most of the quarter.
AT&T now has more than 14 million connected devices on its network, the most of any carrier. Many of its newest gadgets offer some sort of tracking service. AT&T recently launched an ‘Amber Alert’ child tracking device, Garmin’s ‘GTU 10’ GPS locator and a personal monitoring device from BlueLibris designed for senior citizens. AT&T also sells Zephyr Technology’s BioHarness, a physiological monitor that straps around the chest to record heart rate and other data.
To broaden this tracking technology’s appeal, AT&T plans to sell it embedded in clothes. Instead of a chest strap or bar-shaped, handheld device, there would be a small module that attaches to clothing and can be removed for washing. The garment could resemble the E39 shirts Zephyr designed with Under Armour for athletes participating in the NFL Scouting Combine earlier this year, added Lurie. AT&T would provide the wireless connectivity needed to push the gathered data to the web and smartphones.
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