Information

Is a Wearable Computer Ever Idle?

How can a wearable know when it's no longer in use and can go to sleep? If we can answer that, we'll be able to conserve power and prolong the battery life of our wearables.

In a two-way challenge-response dialogue with a computer you can timeout and go to sleep, but what happens when the computer is just displaying information? If you've ever had a screensaver kick-in while you're reading text on your screen you'll know how frustrating that can be. Now imagine how much more frustrating it would be on a wearable computer!

The only solution seems to be an application specific one - sometimes it will be sensible for the wearable to go to sleep, sometimes it won't. We should just make sure we don't try to force a standard solution when one isn't appropriate.