|
Mopad is not a wearable phone! Although Mopad
provides wearable telephony, its whole
is much greater than this part.
Thus, any device that provides nothing more than wearable
telephony will be decidedly outmatched when compared to Mopad.
However, wearable telephony is an important
part of Mopad, and it’s useful to contrast Mopad’s
approach with other approaches. We’ll start by examining
particular approaches and their problems, and end by covering a
general problem with non-Mopad approaches.
Handsets
While handsets are not wearable in the same sense as wrist
phones, head telephones and neck phones, they are wearable in the
same sense as a pocket-watches. I.e., they can be carried
hands-free in pockets, belt holsters and purses. However, even
this limited form of wearability suffers from substantial
problems.
Gender Restrictions: Women’s
clothing often does not include either pockets or belts. And when
pockets and belts are provided, they’re usually not capable
of holding or supporting mobile handsets. Thus women are usually
restricted to using purses.
Pockets: Handsets are too weighty for
shirt pockets (when present). On the other hand, pant pockets are
hard to access while sitting – e.g., while driving.
Belt Holsters: Belt holsters can be
placed in several positions: front, side, back. All positions tend
to interfere with movement. The front and back positions cause
problems while sitting, where they interfere with sitting forward
and backward respectively. The side position causes problems while
walking, since the holster/phone tends to be knocked against walls
and door frames.
Purses: Purses barely qualify as being
wearable – portable is more accurate. A phone carried
in a purse has limited accessibility, both because it needs to be
dug out from the purse, and because the purse itself is often
parked somewhere while the owner moves about.
Wired Earphones
Handsets with wired
earphones continue to suffer from the carriage problems of
handsets, while providing a modestly hands-free and marginally
wearable solution. This limited gain is made at the cost of
additional carriage problems and reduced ease of access.
Modestly Hands-Free: If the user is
sitting in a fixed location, then the handset can be laid nearby,
providing hands-free, but tethered operation. But, aside from the
marginally wearable configuration (below), the handset still needs
to be carried by hand if the user is moving about.
Marginally Wearable: With earphone in
place, the handset can be stuffed in a pocket or purse. However,
this is a temporary, per-call solution and is not practical for
prolonged use.
Carriage and Access: Earphones are
usually kept separate from handsets and thus oftentimes are not
handy when the user needs them. When available, they still must be
located, untangled and then attached to the phone.
Wireless Earphones
Handsets with wireless earphones provide some advances over
wired earphones, but still suffer from substantial problems. They
also continue to suffer from the basic carriage problems of
handsets.
Display and Control: One of the primary
problems with wireless earphones is that being close to the ears,
they can’t be viewed. Thus, users cannot easily screen
incoming phone calls. This problem can be solved through audio
announcement of incoming calls, but other problems (below) result
from this approach. In practice, the handset is usually used to
provide display and control, but handsets still provide less than
immediate access, and are problematic to carry.
Discomfort: Not only are wireless
earphones heavy, but they also must be seated firmly in the ear.
For both of these reasons, they must fit closely and squeeze the
ear in several places. Thus complaints about discomfort are common
– enough so that many potential users find such earphones
unusable.
Audio Encumbrance: Earphones block
external sound. This is good during phone calls, but undesirable
at other times. Since wireless earphones are worn continuously,
this is a problem for all but the heaviest mobile phone users.
Carriage: The solution to the problem of
audio encumbrance is to take the earphone out of the ear while not
using it. But this raises a carriage problem – i.e., the
earphone must be stored somewhere on the user’s person
(pocket, holster, purse). But such storage increases access time,
and prevents audio screening and voice control – thus
re-raising the problem of display and control.
Wrist Phones
One of the common visions for the future of mobile telephony is
the wrist phone. However, this approach has inherent problems
aside from the obvious problem of miniaturization.
The main problem with wrist phones is that although they
provide hands-free carriage, they do not provide hands-free
usage. The same is true for wristwatches; but for watches,
usage isn’t a problem because watch use is so brief (on the
order of a second). In contrast, wrist phones require that the
user hold their arm/wrist out in front of them for the length of
the phone call – which can be minutes, tens of minutes or
even hours.
Aside from the hand-use problem, wrist phones have secondary
problems with audio placement (on the wrist instead of at the
head), and display/control sizing (too small for number and text
entry).
Head Telephones
The science fiction movie Minority Report shows a head
telephone, about the size of, and worn the same way as today’s
wireless earphones. This approach suffers essentially the same
problems as handsets plus wireless earphones. (Head telephones
lose the problem of handset carriage, but also lose the
convenience of handset display and controls.)
Neck Phones without Remotes
Handsets hung around the neck provide a simple wearability
solution – especially if the lanyard holding the phone
incorporates an earphone. Aside from this hybrid approach, phones
can also be designed specifically to be worn around the neck. Neck
phones used without remote controls are considered here, while
neck phones with remote controls are considered in the next
section.
Neck phones offer a superior hands-free solution that is
achievable with today’s technology. However, without remote
controls, display and control requirements cause inherent
problems.
Display and Control: The display and
control problems are similar to those for a wireless headset,
except that the carriage problems are reduced. Again, voice
control and audio announce can be used, but these are problematic
unless the earphone is in place. But using the earphone
continuously causes audio encumbrance problems as described above.
Ease of Access: Usually, the display and
controls are placed on the phone. Again this results in the same
problems as the wireless earphones approach, though again the
problems are less severe because the phone is more accessible.
In order to make the neck phone usable as a
display and control device, it must dangle low on the user’s
chest (so that it can be pulled out and in front of the user to
view and control). However, this only gives the neck phone
accessibility like a pocket watch, rather than like a wristwatch.
Wearability: The low dangling neck phone
tends to bob and sway like a pendulum. Given the weight of the
neck phone, this is unacceptably uncomfortable for most users.
Stylization: In contrast to the
peripheral location of wristwatches, neck phones occupy a very
central location on the user’s body. Hence they have a much
greater social impact – i.e., their appearance strongly
affects the user’s presentation of themselves to others. But
non-Mopad neck phones offer only limited stylization options, thus
limiting their social acceptability.
Neck Phones with Remotes
Most of the problems with neck phones described above can be
resolved by the addition and full use of a remote control or,
preferably, multiple remote controls. However, even this approach
suffers from the lack of flexibility described in the next
section.
Note: Neck phones with remote controls, depending on their
implementation, may be covered by Haphone’s pending patents.
Wearable Phones
All wearable phones suffer from a substantial inherent problem
– they only work well when they’re being worn.
Wearable phones are optimized
for wearability – they fit closely, they have smaller
displays and controls, they use earphones. But all of these
optimizations render then less usable when they’re not being
worn – e.g., when they’re being carried in a pocket or
purse, or laid on a table.
Handsets, in contrast, don’t
excel at either wearability or non-wearability, but perform
acceptably well in both situations. This provides handsets with a
substantial advantage over all (non-Mopad) wearable phones.
Summary
Wristwatches clearly demonstrate the advantages of wearability,
and thus seem to act as a standard for future generations of
mobile telephony. But achieving a satisfactory solution for
wearable telephony requires much more than miniaturization. No
current approach or vision provides such a solution.
Mopad, however, through its modular design, fulfills the
promise of wearable telephony, while resolving all of the
problems discussed above. And wearable telephony is just one
aspect of Mopad!
|