Wearable safety technology is making workplaces safer

Wearable technology has made waves in health and fitness, enabling everything from more personalised fitness training to doctors monitoring their patients remotely. Now wearable tech is helping to make improvements to workplace safety, with several trends helping to improve safety and reduce serious incidents.

Wearable safety devices include a range of products that use tech to collect data, provide hazard alerts, and even improve health and safety training.

Wearable technology can even help to improve health and safety for people working at home or in the office, helping them to make healthier choices when they're working. Workplaces in different industries have been taking advantage of wearable safety tech to keep their employees safe.

Hard helmet sensors

Hard hats or helmets are required in many work environments, such as construction sites. They help to protect the head from falling debris, as well as low ceilings or other structures.

Traditional hard hats simply provide a hard shell for protection, but more modern options could help to make the workplace even safer. Featuring sensors, they can collect data on how close an employee might be to a hazard or the possibility of being struck. If someone does sustain a hit to the head, the helmet can measure how hard they were hit, providing valuable data for medical professionals and for workplace records.

Collecting biometric data

Wearable tech can be used to collect a wide range of biometric data that can be used to improve workplace safety. Many people already use wearable tech that collects this kind of data in the form of a fitness tracker or smartwatch.

In the workplace, this type of wearable tech could help to alert of dangers such as high heart rates or high temperature. It could even be used as evidence when working with a work injury lawyer, benefiting both employees and employers. Better safety decisions can be made when monitoring the health of employees as they work.

Highlighting hazards

Wearable safety tech can use sensors to detect hazards and provide warnings to employees. For example, the UK company SpaceBands is developing wearable tech that uses environmental sensors to pick up hazards such as vehicles, blind spots, and loud noises.

This type of technology could help employees to be more aware of their surroundings and to get warnings of possible hazards before they become real problems. Preventing workplace injury and reducing workplace sickness could be achieved with this type of tech.

Training using augmented reality

Wearable devices can also be used to provide augmented reality training sessions. This allows staff to undergo realistic training sessions without having to actually carry out actions for real, which could be dangerous if they're never done them before.

It can also be a way to save a lot of time, money and space by allowing employees to train within a smaller training location instead of having to set up specific scenarios or train in the field.

Workplaces could become a whole lot safer with the introduction of wearable safety technology. More and more employers are starting to use it to improve health and safety.