Dive Brief:

• Australia- and Seattle-based SmartCap released the first camera-free fatigue-awareness app, offering voice and vibration alerts to wearers of a companion Bluetooth-enabled headband who are showing signs of dozing off.

• The wearable technology monitors EEG brain waves to track user alertness data through a connected mobile app.

• Already successfully deployed in the mining industry, the company sees a market opportunity in the construction vertical for haul trucks, excavator, bulldozers and earth grader operators.

Dive Insight:

Fitbit was undeniably a key market mover and proof of concept when it came to connected wearables. As the company prepares to announce its Q3 2016 financials on Oct. 31, analysts are expecting revenue of $503 million. That puts the company whose bracelet helps to monitor heart rate and other physiological health metrics in the range of $2 billion in revenue for the year.

SmartCap CEO Dush Wimal has stated that he’s interested in a piece of that consumer market even as his firm first proves out its connected headband for fatigue awareness in mining and construction. He’s likely to find a lucrative market there, too, as experts predict wearables will be key to reducing the "fatal four" construction accidents of falls, being caught between moving machinery, being struck by objects and electrocution.

Utility contractors are already embracing personal voltage detectors to help workers identify their proximity to live currents, particularly in inclement weather.

Earlier incarnations of fatigue-awareness technology has relied on cameras to help cue wearable devices that a worker maybe nodding off. SmartCap presents for the first time a headband measuring brain waves that can fit under a construction helmet, ball cap or other type of headgear.