Dive Brief:

• Construction wearables maker Triax Technologies and con-tech company Procore are teaming up to improve the digital capture and management of job-site worker data, according to ForConstructionPros.

• Triax’s Spot-r, which uses a secure wireless mesh network and clip-on personal device to gather and analyze real-time data such as worker attendance, time on the job, location and safety, will be integrated with Procore’s cloud-based job site management platform.

• The goal of integration, according to the companies, is to eliminate the need to collect such information manually, and to avoid the need for users to switch between software platforms to manage worker data.

Dive Insight:

The Fitbit on your wrist isn’t too far from the tracking devices used on job sites today. It's in part because of the growing consumer uptake of wearable technology that industries like construction are finding themselves comfortable enough to use it enterprise-wide. That trend is expected to help drive the global wearables market to $51.6 billion by 2022, according to Markets and Markets.

Triax released its belt-clipped sensor last fall, although the technology was originally developed to track the performance of professional athletes. Fitted with an accelerometer, gyroscope and altimeter, the device can also detect location. That makes it easier for supervisors to find workers who are injured or those who have wandered into an area of the job site for which they are not authorized.

There are a range of uses for wearables on the job. Although many wearables focus on worker location and safety, others have to do with addressing site-specific conditions and are not connected to a network, Construction Dive reported last fall. One such example involves workers in a cold or hot environment using personal heating or cooling devices to manage their body temperature. Other technology can be used to keep track of workers’ brain activity and help them stay awake on overnight shifts during which falling asleep on the job poses a risk to both safety and productivity.

The challenge to broader adoption of these and other devices is interoperability: How readable is the information gathered by existing software used on the job? And how accommodating is that software of new technology, such as wearables? For their part, Procore and Triax are moving that goal forward by making their systems interoperable.

Procore announced earlier this year that its new Construction OS platform is open to third-party developers, making integration of additional construction apps and programs a possibility.