At CES 2019, Samsung Electronics introduced a new wearable device that was called “GEMS”. GEMS is a short version of “Gait Enhancing & Motivating System” and as the name suggested, GEMS is a wearable robot that helps people who need walking assistance, especially those who have weakened leg muscles or are in a recovering process from injuries. It was Samsung’s next-generation healthcare dating back to then. Today, as it evolves over time, GEMS is now a combination of fitness and movement enhancement device that aimed at helping people exercise, especially the senior community, to improve their body condition. In the meantime, It also derives 3 separated variations, which are the GEMS Hip, the GEMS Knee, and the GEMS Ankle. Altogether, these robots will greatly change the lives of people in the future.
One of the main features of this series of wearable robots is compatibility. On the CES 2020, Samsung updated how GEMS can work with other Samsung devices such as AR glasses. The user will wear the devices and have a better workout experience with instruction from professionals right in front of their eyes. Now they can see and hear from AR Glasses. Meanwhile, this time Samsung also presented how to combine watches, earpods and mobile apps that work collabrately with GEMS. Though the product hasn’t facing the public yet, I could image how this device fit into social model. We can tell from the transition of the robot’s function that Samsung is trying to enlarge the user population. This is not just a personal medical care device anymore. It is not only helps people with a mobility impairment but also senior or anyone who have mobility problems due to aging or temporal condition. In addition, adding watches, glasses, airpod and perhaps more andiord devices into the system can help people with other diasbility. I believe they will continually work on compatibility improvement.
When we try to evaluate the accessibility and usability of GEMS, perhaps we should also take the 3 sub-catelog robots into consideration. The GEMS Hip, the GEMS Knee, and the GEMS Ankle are designed for specific reasons.
The GEMS Hip, an exoskeleton worn on the waist, supports about 20% of the body strength when walking, allowing users to walk faster. The GEMS worn on the knee is for arthritis patients or for those in rehabilitation and designed to relieve the burden on the knee by supporting more than 30 kilograms of body weight. With the GEMS Ankle, users are able to The GEMS Hip, an exoskeleton worn on the waist, supports about 20% of the body strength when walking, allowing users to walk faster. The GEMS worn on the knee is for arthritis patients or for those in rehabilitation and designed to relieve the burden on the knee by supporting more than 30 kilograms of body weight. With the GEMS Ankle, users are able to walk 10% faster by wearing ankle support, the company said. by wearing ankle support, the company said.
cited from the Korea Economy Daily
Despite the corn function, which is supporting the body weight to enhance walking speed. These variations of GEMS make it more usable for people who has different needs. No matter how well-function one robots can be, these variants can reduce cost and maybe reduce weight of their own. Therefore, I believe every robots of GEMS makes them more accsible and usable as a whole.
There is one downside of this product, which is affordability. According to the Korea Economy Daily, this device is most likely be priced between $4,500-$8,950 once it out for market. They also reported that Samsung is working out reduce the price to make it more affordable. Even in this case, when think about the possible customers of the product, it is hard to say that they would pay for such a price for a product primairly help to improve their body movement. It is not a critical medical device, but only work as a supplement.To some degree, the Samsung do take functional solution model when they design, but they forget about the humanity side of technology. The current price would be more reasonable that this robots might be purchased by larger enterprise or organization than a person.
Conclusion
GEMS is no long the product that was presented at the CES 2019. It is still hard to guess what is the real product would be like. However, we can see how hard they try to apply human center design and also take accessibility into consideration. Let’s have faith on it.
Reference
https://www.kedglobal.com/newsView/ked202106150015