1
IoT-based Wearables: A comprehensive Survey
Yahuza Bello ∗ , Emanuel Figetakis ∗
∗ University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
Abstract—A substantial amount of growth is being achieved by
businesses through IoT-based services. The emergent of small elec-
tronic devices capable of computing, which are commonly known as
wearables in IoT domain has proven to have huge impact in people’s
life. Theses wearables are capable of collecting vital information
about a person’s activities and behaviours regularly. This makes
them suitable for many applications in health monitoring, fitness,
arXiv:2304.09861v1 [cs.HC] 12 Apr 2023
sports, education and some industry related applications. To this
end, in this paper, we aim to provide a general review on IoT-based
wearables, the sensors adopted for several categorized wearables, the
communication technologies adopted and the most widely adopted
data processing techniques for wearables. Furthermore, we present
the challenges faced for wide adoption of wearables and the future
research directions.
Index Terms—Internet of things, wearables, communication tech-
nologies, data analytic
I. I NTRODUCTION
I N today’s modern era, several applications are developed with
the need of connectivity to the internet to function effec-
tively. The Internet of Things (IoT) is the concept of having
embedded systems interconnected together and communicating
through the Internet [1]. This provides the required connectivity
to the internet for such applications. The IoT domain has been
thoroughly investigated in both academia and industry and its
development through the years was rapid because of its wide
range of applications in various fields such as health, IoT-enabled
sports, IoT-enabled factories, agriculture, IoT-enabled cities, traffic
management, smart supply chain and smart grid to name a few as
depicted in Figure 1.
A substantial amount of growth is being achieved by businesses
through IoT-based services. For example, the biggest economic
impact will be from healthcare and manufacturing applications.
The global economy is expected to generate about 1.1−2.5 trillion
US dollars in growth annually by 2025 as a result of IoT-
based healthcare applications and services, such as mobile health
(mHealth) and telecare services that improves diagnosis, treatment
and other monitoring services. IoT is estimated to generate a
total economic impact amounting to $2.7 trillion - $6.2 trillion
annually by 2025 [2]. In Figure 2, dominant IoT applications
(i.e., applications in healthcare, manufacturing, electricity, urban
infrastructure, security, resource extraction, agriculture, retail and
vehicles) are shown with their projected market share [3].
A typical IoT consists of 6 building blocks as shown in Figure 3.
These buildings blocks are identification, sensing, communica-
tion, computation/processing, services and semantics. By knowing
these building blocks, you can gain a deeper understanding of how
IoT works and what it means. Identifying services and matching
them with customer demands is crucial for IoT. Electronic product
codes (EPCs) and ubiquitous codes (uCodes) are two most adopted
identification methods for the IoT systems. Sensors in the IoT
gather data from related objects and send it to data warehouses,
databases, or the cloud. Based on the analysis performed on
the collected data, specific actions are taken according to the
services that are required. There are a variety of IoT sensors,
including smart sensors, actuators, and wearable sensors. We will
discuss sensors in the context of wearable devices in section
IV. Using multiple communication technologies, heterogeneous
IoT objects can be connected to provide specific smart services.
The different communication technologies used in the context
of wearable devices will be discussed in detail in section V. In
IoT, processors, microcontrollers, System-on-Chips (SoCs), and
Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) comprise the ”brain”
and computational power. Arduino, UDOO, FriendlyARM, Intel
Galileo, Raspberry PI, Gadgeteer, BeagleBone, Cubieboard, Z1,
WiSense, Mulle, and T-Mote Sky are some of the hardware
platforms designed to run IoT applications.
The emergent of small electronic devices capable of computing,
which are commonly known as wearables in IoT domain has
proven to have huge impact in peoples life [4]. Theses wearables
are capable of collecting vital information about a person’s ac-
tivities and behaviours regularly. This makes them suitable for
many applications in health monitoring, fitness, sports, education
and some industry related applications. Wearables are often worn
as additional accessories on individual’s clothing, as implants on
certain part of the body, or even tattooed to the skin. Being part
of the IoT ecosystem, wearables are connected to the Internet
in order to gather and transmit vital information. Additionally,
the mobility of people and animals makes wearable devices
increasingly important since they can collect, send, and receive
data from the Internet in real time, and thus help us to make
better decisions to improve our lifestyle.
A wide variety of wearable products such as smart jewelleries,
smart wristbands, smart watches, smart glasses, smart shoes and
smart belts are already available in the markets as illustrated in
Figure 4. According to International Data Corporations (IDC),
the global shipments of wearable products are projected to grow
from 66.5 million units as reported in 2019 to 105.3 million
units by the end of 2024 [5]. Wearable devices first emerged
as fitness activity trackers, then comes other applications such
as Bluetooth headsets, smartwatches, and web-enabled glasses
shortly [6]. Afterwards, virtual reality headsets and augmented
reality headsets were introduced in the gaming industry. However,
health monitoring and medical usage cases are the most important
life-changing applications of IoT-based wearable technologies.
Wearable devices are a rapidly developing field with the po-
tential to open up new applications. This review is motivated
by the potential of wearable devices to be able to open up
new applications in various fields. Specifically, in this review,
we will focus mainly on identifying the different wearables in
the IoT domain, discuss the different sensors adopted for these
wearables and then cover the different data processing techniques
and communication technologies that are widely used for the IoT-

Fig. 1: Internet of things Applications [7]
based wearables.
Fig. 2: Projected market share of dominant IoT applications by
2025 [3]
Although there are several survey papers [4,8]–[13] that ad-
dressed the concept of wearables and the ongoing research efforts,
2
most of them focused on specific application such as applications
in fitness and health monitoring neglecting the sensors behind
each wearable, the various communication techniques adopted
and data processing techniques that are commonly used for IoT-
based wearables. To this end, in this paper, we aim to provide
a general review on IoT-based wearables, the sensors adopted
for several categorized wearables, the communication technologies
adopted and the most widely adopted data processing techniques
for wearables.
The rest of the paper is structured as follows: Section II presents
the relevant survey papers published in the literature. Section III
introduces IoT-based wearables and categorized them according
to the targeted application. In section IV, the most commonly
used sensors for IoT-based wearables are discussed. Section V
discusses the various communication technologies adopted for
wearables and the various data analytic techniques used for data
processing. Section VI presents the challenges faced for wide
adoption of wearables and the future research directions. Section
VII concludes the paper.
II. R ELATED W ORKS
A number of other research studies have examined wearable
technologies in different ways. For example, the survey paper in
[4] provides academics seeking further research topics with an
in-depth understanding of smart wearables concept. The authors
present an analysis of behavioral predictors of smart wearable
adoption and adoption intentions among people. In [8], using
signals and sensors, the authors examines context-based pairing
in wearable devices. The author in [9] examine each type of IoT

Fig. 3: IoT components [3]
Smart watch Smart jewelry Smart wristband
Smart glasses Smart shoes Smart belts
Fig. 4: IoT-based Wearable products
architecture as well as different methods of data transfer, data pro-
cessing, and computing paradigms. Then the IoT-assisted wearable
sensor systems and their various applications in healthcare as well
as the various communication technologies adopted are presented
in the paper. The authors in [10] reviews both scientific papers
and commercial efforts related to wearable health care devices.
The paper focuses on the most important wearable devices that
directly measure health status parameters. An overview of existing
literature on intelligent wearables is presented in [11]. The authors
went further to provide a review of the risks of using intelligent
wearables and explain what risks were considered in previous
research. The authors in [12] discuss and explore several commu-
nication and artificial intelligence techniques, which are suitable
for the next generation of wearable devices. These techniques
when fully adopted will enable emergence of innovative services.
An overview of recent research on wearables and IoT technologies
used for fitness assessment is provided in [13].
III. W EARABLES IN I OT
There are many applications in the field of IoT that can be
enhanced by wearable technology. However, wearable devices will
3
become worth their weight in gold when they are integrated into
a true IoT system. As a result, most research papers currently
published in the literature connect wearable devices to the Internet
in one of two ways. Either the wearable devices send data to the
cloud or to an Internet server for offline processing or some of
the data processing is done locally on the wearable device. Having
integrated IoT platforms and addressing many issues pertaining to
data ownership, data sharing policies, privacy, and safety will fully
realize the prevalence of wearable devices.
In many cases, a mobile network is needed to support these
wearable devices. Data is also a concern when dealing with
sensors that collect many readings. In works [14]–[18] the authors
create specialized networks that can handle the needs of wearable
devices. These networks also address several concerns such as
security and data storage. In, [19] shows that edge nodes can also
play an important role with IoT devices and data collection. It can
reduce load on the server and save storage space.
Several research works have categorized IoT-based wearables
by considering multiple factors. As part of its ongoing effort to
standardize wearable electronic devices and technologies, Tech-
nical Commission (TC) 124 of the IEC (International Elec-
trotechnical Commission) identifies four types of smart wearables:
accessory wearables, textile/fabric wearables, patchable wearables
and implantable wearables. For details on this categorization, refer
to [20]. The IEC Standardization Group (SG) 10 on wearable
smart devices also indicated that these wearable devices can be
categorized in accordance with their location within, on, or near
an individual. The categories are near-body wearables, in-body
wearables, on-body wearables and electronic textiles [21]. Accord-
ing to [22], IoT-based wearable devices can be categorized into
wrist-worn devices (such as smart watches and wrist bands), haed-
mounted devices (such as smart eyewear, headset and earbuds), e-
textile (such as smart garments), e-patches (such as sensor patches
and e-tattoo) and others (this category covers that do not fall under
the other categories such as smart jewellery and straps).
In this paper, we categorized wearable devices according to the
targeted applications in IoT domain similar to the work in [23].
As depicted in Figure 5, IoT-based wearbles can be classified
according to the targeted applications as Health-based wearables,
safety-based wearables, sports and activity recognition wearables
and tracking and localization wearables.
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TABLE I: Summary of the Categorized Wearables and the relavant related works

Wearable categories Description Related works

Wearable IoT devices used to monitor and treat patients
Health-based applications [23]–[29]
remotely, and in some cases for rehabilitation.
wearables in the safety category are used to provide a safe
Safety Applications [30]–[35]
environment for users.
This category pertains to applications where wearables are
Sports and activity recogni-
worn during sport activities to track different metrics of [36,37]
tion
user/athlete activity to improve their performance.
Tracking people and animals online is the most common use
Tracking and localization [38,39]
of this category.

[24] presents a walker-based physiotherapy system for monitoring

Health Applications
Sports & Activity
Recognition Applications
IoT-based Safety Applications
Wearables
Tracking and Localization
Applications
Fig. 5: Application-based Classification of Wearable Devices
A. Health-based wearables
In the health sector, Wearable IoT devices are usually used
to monitor and treat patients remotely, and in some cases for
rehabilitation. Data about a patient’s health is collected through
sensors, and the wearable device may perform small analysis
before sending the data to the Internet for further processing.
Additionally, these wearables are capable of receiving additional
inputs to aid for further analysis. Often, health-based wearable
devices are typically connected to smartphones for analyzing data
and sending it to cloud computing frameworks like Azure or Ama-
zon Web Services (AWS) for handling, storing, and processing.
The use of mobile health applications can provide insight about a
patient’s health and provide a visual representation of the analysis
of the data. The wearable also can be programmed to respond
to special commands, such as heating up the body or applying
shocks, based on the analyzed data during treatment.
Health-based applications of wearables can be broadly cate-
gorized as health treatment and rehabilitation wearable systems
and health monitoring wearable systems [23]. Several studies have
demonstrated the significance of health treatment and rehabilita-
tion wearable systems.
By using rehabilitation wearables, disabled patients can main-
tain or improve their mental or physical abilities. The authors in
and evaluating movement metrics is proposed, which sends the
data to the cloud for analysis, and displayed on a mobile appli-
cation in real time. In [25], a stroke rehabilitation framework that
utilizes smart wearable armbands, machine learning algorithms,
and 3-D-printed robot hands to assist stroke patients was proposed.
An IoT sensing device was integrated with textile electrodes to
develop the SWA, which measures, pre-processes, and wirelessly
transmits biopotential information. The work in [26] presents a
framework for an m-Health monitoring system based on a cloud
computing platform (Cloud-MHMS) for achieving personalised
and high-quality health monitoring using new technologies, such
as mobile networks and cloud computing. A system using IoT
data to support emergency medical services is presented as a
demonstration of how data can be collected, integrated, and inter-
operated flexibly in [27]. The authors develop a Resource-based
Data Accessing-IoT (UDA-IoT) method that allow access to IoT
data resources in a universal manner in order to enhance the acces-
sibility of IoT data resources. The authors in [28] propose a new
cloud-based wheelchair assist system, which supports impaired
drivers by providing safe driving conditions. The authors utilized
an embedded mobile System-On-a-Chip (SoC) and android based
mobile application for the proposed system. A gaming-based
rehabilitation system integrating wearable technology and IoT is
presented in [29] in order to help stroke patients who, suffer from
upper limb disabilities.
In the same fashion, health monitoring wearable systems are
categorized based on the kind of sensor adopted as Bio-potential
sensors, motion sensors, environmental sensors and chemical
sensors [23]. The different kind of sensors used in most IoT-based
wearables will be discussed in detail in the next section.
B. Safety-based wearables
The wearables in the safety category are used to provide a
safe environment for users. For example, mines can benefit from
the use of safety-based wearable devices that monitor air quality
to protect workers and reduce costs incurred by employers and
the workers. Safety-based wearable devices are used in many
applications to detect or prevent falls, especially in elderly people.
Several studies in the literature have investigated and proposed
numerous techniques and algorithms for fall detection.

TABLE II: Common Communication Technologies used in IoT-based Wearables
Type of Technol-
Range Data Rates
ogy
ZigBee 10 to 100 meters 250kbps
WiFi 10 to 100 meters 6.75Gbps
Bluetooth 10 to 100 meters 2.1Mbps
LoRaWan 15 to 20 Kilometers 250bps to 5.5kbps
Using pretested templates for each type of fall and comparing
angular velocities and angles between falls and normal activities,
[30] propose a fall detection framework. In [31], deep learning
and activity characteristics are used to develop a novel method
for detecting human falls on furniture using scene analysis that
adopts Region-based Convolutional Neural Network (R-CNN).
A fall detection system incorporated tri-axial accelerometers,
gyroscopes, and magnetometers to obtain fall parameters was
proposed by [32]. Based on a reverse approach, the authors in [33]
propose a novel autonomous fall detection system. The proposed
system uses a camera attached to the subject rather than static
sensors at fixed locations. Therefore, monitoring is not limited to
areas where the sensors are located but includes all areas where
the subject travels. [34] presents a novel system that uses a smart
camera to detect falls and classify activities around the waist.
An EEG-based BCI prototype is proposed [35] to detect whether
an on-site worker is sleep-deprived or not in an elegant manner.
Modified safety helmets with a discreetly placed signal acquisition
device are worn by workers to ensure their safety. Table I presents
a summary of the categorized wearables and the relevant related
works published in the literature.
IV. S ENSORS IN I OT- BASED W EARABLE
Sensors are a crucial part of IoT-based wearable, they allow for
the data collection of a certain action that can then be analyzed
and measured. They are many different sensors, and each single
sensor can have multiple different applications.
A. Sensors found in Sports
Wearables that are used in sports to gain metrics and about an
athlete’s performance are categorized under Inertial Measurement
Unit (IMU) sensors and help with the study of motions, kinematics
[40] The sensors that are categorized under IMUs are magnetome-
ter, accelerometer, and gyroscopes. Magnetometer helps determine
orientation of an object which in sports has many applications, the
sensors themselves are small require low energy to power and can
communicate over I2C or SPI [41]. Accelerometers can measure
movement in a given direction, they can be as precise to measure
movement such as wrist tilt [42]. Gyroscopes measure orientation
as well as angular velocity, it also has the ability to maintain
orientation as well [43]. Combining the sensors into a single
5
Frequency Band (s) Topology
2GHz Star, ad hoc, and mesh
2.4GHz, 5GHz Point Hub
2.402GHz to Point to point, point to
2.408GHz multi-point
169 MHz (Asia),
868MHz (Europe)
Star
91MHz (North
America)
device can help measure and study kinematics in a sport setting.
Examples of the sensors being used in a device can be found in
[44] and [45] where the sensors are used for their advantages in
capturing certain ranges of motions. The data is then captured
and analyzed by their respective data analysis programs. Sensors
in IoT are very violate especially in Wearables, many sensors
have more than one application, for example IMU sensors have
applications in wearables outside of sports. For example, in [46]
IMU sensors are used to create 3D maps, an application that is
used outside of the scope of motion.
B. Sensors found in Healthcare
When it comes to healthcare there is a long list of sensors that
are found in wearables. Wearables in health care can be used to
monitor or treat patients, which are powered by different types
of sensors. Sensors already discussed [41][42][43] also have use
in healthcare since they deal with the study of motion with the
human body [40].
Looking at table III there are many different sensors found
in different wearable devices for healthcare. Many sensors are
present in many different devices, and sometimes are even com-
bined with other sensors from other categories of wearables. Look-
ing at the airflow sensor, it has a straightforward purpose within
healthcare, to help a patient breathe. They can be found mostly
in ventilators[48] as well as devices for oxygen therapy[50]. A
pressure sensor have an unexpectedly large impact on devices,
they are used in ventilators, oxygen therapy, sleep therapy[51], and
automation of drug infusion[52]. Another sensor that is common
throughout healthcare is oxygen sensors, which measure a patients
oxygen level. The sensor can be found in devices that attach to
a patient’s finger [54]. EEG sensors are also used in healthcare,
they are used in research for the human brain to help gain a better
understanding and can also be used to help diagnose any issues.
Glucose sensors mostly benefit patients with diabetes, the sensor
has become non-invasive and implemented on IoT devices such as
smartwatches that can automatically send alerts to let the patient
know any imbalances are occurring. The ECG sensor might be the
most know sensor in healthcare, it is present in every hospital and
almost all smart watches/ring[59][60][61] feature an ECG sensor.
The ECG measures heart rate and can collect information about a
patient throughout the day to see if any irregularities are occurring.

TABLE III: Sensors Found in Healthcare IOT Wearables
Sensor Product
Airflow Sensor[47] [48]
Pressure Sensor[49] [48][50][51][52]
Oxygen Sensor[53] [48][54]
Electroencephalography(EEG)[55]
[56]
Sensor
Glucose Sensor [57]
Electrocardiogram(ECG) Sensor [58] [59][60][61]
C. Sensors found in Safety
Wearables in the area of safety are also finding applications,
the scenarios range from at home to work environment safety.
Wearable devices are fitted with sensors that can check the envi-
ronment, make sure certain equipment is being handled properly,
and prevent and kind of injury. Taking a look at [62] the authors
used different sensors in a wearable device to determine harmful
environmental conditions. The sensors used in their wearable are
temperature, C02, UV, and CO [63][64][65][66]. When it comes
to safety most sensors can be implemented in wearables, for
sports, health, and tracking and localization they can be added as
preventative measures. For example, in sports, accelerometers can
be used to detected impacts which can cause injuries, in healthcare
ECG sensors can be used to detect abnormal heart rates, and in
tracking sensors can be implemented to prevent someone from
getting lost.
Fig. 6: Example of Safety Wearable with sensors[62]
D. Sensors found in Tracking/Localization
Werables that are categorized in tracking and localization help
with determining the environment conditions by utilizing sensors
as well determining location [67]. Tracking is a category with a
wide area of applications, it can range from actual geo-locating
to tracking a person’s movements or specific body part. From
a medical/sport standpoint sensor like accelerometers[42] can
track movement to help determine the kind of motion, this also
applies to magnetometer and gyroscopes. For determine location
via satellite location sensors are used in wearables [68], this helps
6
Description
Helps correct a patients irregular breathing to
supply enough oxygen to the body
Regulates and creates pressure in various appli-
cations
Measures a patients oxygen level as well as pulse
rate
Measures a patients brain activity
Measures a patients blood sugar level
Measures a patients heart rate
with everything between loss prevention to navigation. For more
local mapping that does not need communication to satellite, like
somewhere in a house or small community, accelerometers are
used to measure distance between certain points to create a map.
This comes into play in applications with smart homes, as well
as mobile devices to help predict a user’s habits.
Fig. 7: Communication Technologies for IoT-based Wearables [22]
V. DATA A NALYSIS AND C OMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES
FOR I OT- BASED W EARABLES
In this section, we will first introduce the various communica-
tion technologies that are widely adopted in IoT-based wearables.
Then the various data analytic techniques in the context of
wearables will be discussed.
A. Communication Technologies
Various wireless communication protocols support different
communication ranges in wearables to offer a wide range of
applications, as shown in Figure 7. Bluetooth, ZigBee and ANT
belong to the short range class, Wi-Fi and cellular, LoRaWan
belongs to the long range class and the ultra short range class
consists of NFC.
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1) ZigBee: ZigBee technology is built on the IEEE 802.15.4 example, for tracking and localization wearable can feature an
standard. Resource-constrained environments and devices with accelerometers to track distance traveled but a wearable from
limited power provide the perfect environment for this kind of healthcare application could be using an accelerometers to track
technology to thrive. In spite of being standardized in 2003, the motion of a patient for physical therapy.
it was originally conceived in 1998 [69]. ZigBee has a range Machine learning can play an important role in data analysis
of approximately ten to a hundred meters and consumes an for wearables. It can help learn a person’s habits and find what is
insignificant amount of power. ZigBee uses the direct sequence normal for the user. In [73] it comes in the form of personalized
spread spectrum (DSSS) technique and adopts the ad hoc, mesh medicine, where a machine learning algorithm can learn about
and star topology. In ZigBee, there are three types of devices: the a patient and then keep checks on the patient for irregularities
coordinator (ZC), the router (ZR), and the end-device (ZED) [70]. outside of their normal. The same type of concept can be used in
2) Wi-Fi: A wireless communication standard based on all applications of wearables. Another example of data analysis
IEEE802.11, wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) is one of the most popular comes from [74] where a wearable is being used to help diagnose
wireless technologies. In order to access radio channels, Wi-Fi early stages of Parkinson’s disease. The sensors collect data which
uses the CSMA/CA protocol. With a range up to 10 meters and is then analyzed and compared to the early signs of the disease.
a high -power consumption, Wi-Fi is a highly efficient wireless
network. There are four types of configurations available with this
network: infrastructure, ad hoc, bridge, and repeater, which has a
maximum data transfer rate of 6.75Gbps and 140MHz of channel
capacity for a very high price [71].
3) Bluetooth: Wireless personal area networks (WPANs) with
high security can be formed using Bluetooth, a proprietary open
standard developed for mobile and fixed devices. Using a master-
slave (client-server) model, Bluetooth is a packet-oriented protocol
that is connection-oriented, packet-based. Bluetooth were limited
by the initial specifications’ high-power consumption, long com-
munication set-up time, and high transmission latency (about 100
ms). Due to these limitations, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) was
developed to overcome them. BLE is designed specifically for
applications relating to health, sports, and fitness applications.
4) LoRaWan: IoT networks have become increasingly inter-
ested in LoRaWan (low-power wide-area networks) because it is
suitable for LPWAN (low-power wide-area networks). LoRaWan
is very suitable for wireless sensor networks due to its robustness
and range. Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) or Chirp Spread Spec-
trum (CSS) are the main modes of communication used in LoRa
radios. A node and a gateway are the two main types of devices
in this technology. Gateways are connected to thousands of nodes
at once, each sending and receiving information from the gateway
in a LoRaWan setup.
In the wearable device domain, Bluetooth Classic (standardized
but no longer maintained by IEEE 802.15.1), Bluetooth Smart and
Wi-Fi have become the most common standards [72] used for
connectivity to the Internet. A comparative analysis of the different
Fig. 8: System used for collecting data and analyzing data from
adopted communication technologies used in IoT-based wearables
a sensor [74]
in terms of range, data rates, frequency bands and topology is
presented in Table II.
In many of the systems, the data analysis doesn’t take place on
the device itself. The computation needed cannot be met, there
B. Data Analytics edge nodes and cloud -based systems are put in place to analyze
Data analytics has a large application within wearables in IoT, the data. However, this doesn’t come without challenges, many
since many new methods of machine learning are being developed, forms of data analytics require a large amount of data also many
they can be used within these applications. In a system there is the sensors are collecting data constantly throughout the entire day.
device with its many sensors taking constant measurements it is Over time this accumulates into terabytes of data that can fill up
the analytics that take the measurements and make them a readable storage drive quickly. Another challenge that must be addressed
output. IoT-based Wearables are classified in to four applications, in privacy, the data that is being collected about a person’s
health applications, sports applications, safety applications, track- habits/lifestyle is very detailed and can be shared between different
ing and localization applications. Wearables from each application companies, making privacy an issue. In [75] an approach is taken
can differ slightly in design and include the same sensors, it is with data analytics to unlabeled the data to help privacy. By doing
how the data is analyzed that differs from each application. For this they are not disclosing where the data is coming from and

keeping to anonymous, the only competent that is receiving the
labelled data is the algorithm doing the analysis.
Fig. 9: System used for privacy data processing [75]
VI. C HALLENGES AND F UTURE R ESEARCH D IRECTIONS
There are several challenges in the domain of IoT-based wear-
ables. To fully utilize the benefits of wearables devices in the
community, these challenges need to be addressed urgently.
A. Battery-related Issues
Since batteries have limited working times, wearable devices
often have a short sustainable working time, which causes in-
convenience to people’s daily lives. Therefore, when designing
wearables, special considerations need to be taken into account
to minimize human interaction and ensure that the batteries last
for many hours without needing to be replaced or recharged. For
example, there are a variety of systems available, such as those
that use low power consumption or techniques that harvest energy
such as thermo-electric and piezo-electric that can be utilized in
wearable domain.
B. Communication-related Issues
Currently, most wearable devices connect to the Internet pri-
marily through proxy devices such as smartphones or personal
computers. For example, most fitness tracking wearable applica-
tions still communicate with clouds through smartphones. This
shows a gap in the adoption of direct communication with the
internet, which hinders the development of some specific delay
sensitive applications in the wearable domain. Potential reasons
for this lack of support may be the absence of secure direct
communication devices built into wearable operating systems or
the slower development of third-party applications for wearables.
However, the demand for wearable devices capable of direct
communication with the internet is on the rise [76]. This is a
potential area of research to explore the design of wearable devices
with such capability.
8
C. Trust-related Issues for Medical Use Cases
There is lack of trust in the sensitive data produced by consumer
wearables in patients monitoring applications. For example, data
related to heart rate, pulse rate, and other health metrics is sensed
by wearables using consumer hardware. Therefore, physicians
are reluctant to use these data for critical diagnostics because
they much rely on the accuracy of the hardware used in making
the wearables as well as the accuracy of using it properly. A
critical challenge would therefore be to improve health-related
data accuracy cheaply.
D. Privacy-related Issues
It is possible that privacy breaches could occur as a result of
an exchange of personal data between wearables and IoT hubs,
including vital health signals, dosage, and location. It is typical for
wearable IoT devices to operate in broadcast mode so that other
network nodes can discover them easily. As a result, unauthorised
users can intercept data in the form of eavesdropping attacks,
which leads to privacy violation. A number of questions remain
unanswered concerning the effective protection of users’ privacy.
This is an interesting research problem that is on-going not only
in the wearable domain but in other security-related domains.
VII. C ONCLUSION
From fitness and sport to health monitoring, wearable devices
are becoming increasingly popular. In this paper, we provided a
comprehensive review of the most important research efforts from
the literature in IoT-based wearables. We categorized the wear-
ables according to their applicable applications. Additionally, the
sensors, communication technologies and data analytic techniques
adopted in the IoT-based wearables is investigated and presented
by surveying multiple papers published in the literature. Addi-
tionally. the challenges as well as the future research directions
in IoT-based wearables is presented. In terms of communication
technologies, Bluetooth Classic, Bluetooth Smart and Wi-Fi are
the most common standards adopted for wearables connectivity
to the Internet.
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