Wearable technology continues to move beyond traditional smartwatches and fitness trackers. From AI-powered glasses and smart insoles to medical monitoring systems and next-generation health sensors, developers are finding new ways to integrate electronics into products that move naturally with the human body.

The WT | Wearable Technologies Conference 2026 USA was held September 15–16, 2026, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. Its published program included companies, researchers, engineers and technology leaders working across healthcare, artificial intelligence, sensing, smart textiles, electronics and connected devices.

The conference agenda highlighted many of the trends shaping the future of wearables, including smart health monitoring, AI-enabled devices, smart patches, intelligent eyewear, assistive technologies and the challenge of moving wearable products from prototypes into scalable manufacturing.

Taken together, the scheduled sessions reflected a common engineering challenge: wearable devices must fit more sensing, processing and connectivity into products that remain small, lightweight, comfortable and reliable.

How Flexible Electronics Support Wearable Design

Traditional rigid printed circuit boards remain essential for many electronic systems, but wearable products introduce mechanical and dimensional requirements that can make conventional PCB architectures difficult to package.

A smartwatch, medical patch, smart insole or pair of AI glasses may need to incorporate sensors, processors, wireless communication, batteries and other components within an extremely limited amount of space. At the same time, the device may experience movement, bending, vibration, heat and moisture during everyday use.

Flexible printed circuits can help engineers address these challenges by allowing circuitry to bend and conform to the available enclosure rather than requiring the product to be designed around a flat, rigid PCB.

Several circuit approaches address these constraints. Ultra-thin flexible circuits reduce thickness and weight, dynamic flex designs accommodate repeated movement, and controlled-impedance routing helps maintain signal performance in densely packaged devices.

Rigid-flex construction can provide another option by combining rigid component areas with flexible interconnections in a single circuit. This approach can reduce the need for separate connectors and wiring while helping engineers package electronics into complex or irregular shapes.

These approaches are relevant across healthcare wearables, biometric sensors, smart sports equipment, connected garments and intelligent eyewear.

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Three Technologies in the 2026 Conference Program

The published conference program listed presentations from Nanowear, Novosound and ORPHE.

1. Nanowear and Cloth-Based Health Monitoring

Nanowear illustrates how wearable technology can move beyond devices worn on the wrist.

The company's SimpleSense platform uses cloth-based nanosensor technology in a wearable garment to collect cardiometabolic health data. The system is designed to monitor parameters associated with the heart, lungs, vascular system and physical activity while using AI-enabled analytics to provide healthcare professionals with actionable information.

Technology like this demonstrates an important direction for wearable electronics: sensors and circuitry are increasingly becoming part of the clothing or material worn by the user rather than a separate electronic device.

That shift places additional importance on lightweight, thin and mechanically flexible electronic systems capable of operating reliably while the wearer moves.

2. Novosound and Wearable Ultrasound

Novosound's technology features compact ultrasound sensing for wearable healthcare.

The company's SenseBP technology uses thin-film ultrasound sensors to directly measure arterial movement for blood-pressure monitoring. The technology is designed to provide cuffless measurements without requiring user calibration, while Novosound's broader roadmap includes integrating the technology into wearable devices.

Miniaturizing technologies such as ultrasound presents substantial packaging challenges. Electronics must fit within increasingly small enclosures while maintaining reliable connections between sensors, processing electronics and power systems.

Flexible and rigid-flex PCBs can help designers route those connections through compact or curved spaces, making them particularly valuable as medical sensing technologies move toward smaller and more wearable form factors.

3. ORPHE and Smart Insoles

ORPHE is applying wearable technology in another area entirely: the foot.

The company's ORPHE INSOLE integrates pressure and motion sensing into a smart insole capable of collecting information about gait, balance, movement and weight distribution. The system incorporates six pressure sensors along with a six-axis motion sensor in each insole, providing data that can support applications in sports, rehabilitation, healthcare and biomechanics.

The conference program listed ORPHE CEO Yuya Kikukawa for a session on how smart insoles can address wearable adherence and support mobility-health monitoring.

Smart footwear illustrates exactly why flexible electronics are so important to wearable product design. Electronics inside a shoe must fit within an extremely thin package while operating in an environment that experiences constant movement, bending and mechanical stress.

For applications like these, reducing circuit thickness and designing interconnects around repeated motion can be just as important as the electronic functionality itself.

Moving Wearable Products from Prototype to Production

The 2026 program included a dedicated session on moving wearable technologies from prototypes to mass manufacturing.

A successful wearable product requires more than innovative sensors or software. Engineers must consider circuit geometry, bend requirements, component placement, signal integrity, power consumption, materials, environmental exposure and manufacturability early in the design process.

These considerations become even more important as wearable products become smaller and more sophisticated.

The commercialization sessions focused on practical design and preparation for manufacturing. Flexible, rigid-flex and rigid constructions each suit different mechanical and electrical requirements, and early coordination among product, circuit and manufacturing teams can reveal reliability or production issues before volume manufacturing begins.

What the Conference Program Covered

The WT Conference USA 2026 program reflected the breadth of the wearable technology market. Its sessions covered electronics moving into clothing, footwear, medical devices, glasses and other products designed for everyday use.

As these devices become more capable, the electronics inside them must become smaller, lighter and more adaptable.

Flexible and rigid-flex PCB technologies allow electronic systems to follow the shape and movement of a product or the human body, which can make them useful when a conventional flat circuit board would limit the design.

The technologies included in the program also point to the importance of materials, packaging, power systems and interconnect design. Each affects whether a wearable device can be comfortable, dependable and practical to manufacture.

For engineering teams evaluating these concepts, the practical questions remain consistent: where the circuit must bend, how often it will move, what environmental exposure it will face, and how the design will transition from prototype to repeatable production.