Digital Lifescapes

Wearable Technology development is focused any electronic products that are designed to be worn on the person. Over the last couple of years, vendors in the market for wearable devices have moved beyond the initial hype to describe practical uses that are enabled by software apps. With the core wearable technology sectors now beginning to mature, IDTechEx has released their latest analysis of this diverse and growing industry in their "Wearable Technology 2016-2026" report. Their latest worldwide study finds the market to be worth over $30 billion in 2016, with over $11 billion of that coming from newly popular products -- including smartwatches and fitness trackers. Wearables Market Development Opportunities However, despite the total market growing to over $150 billion by 2026, IDTechEx forecasts a pending shake-up in several prominent sectors -- with some commoditization impacting pricing and product form factors adapting to nascent opportunities. The IDTechEx m...

The wearable devices market is evolving rapidly, fueling the explosion of big data apps within the Internet of Things. A combination of new device releases, retail price reductions, and company rationalizations marked the first quarter of 2016 (1Q16) in the worldwide wearables market. According to the latest global market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), the wearable device total shipment volumes reached 19.7 million units in 1Q16 -- that's an increase of 67.2 percent from the 11.8 million units shipped during the same period in 2015. Moreover, the first quarter of 2016 saw its fair share of significant events to entice customers, with multiple fitness trackers and smartwatches introduced at the major technology shows. Wearable Device Category Expansion There were post-holiday price reductions on multiple wearables, including Apple's Sport Watch; and greater participation within emerging wearables categories, particularly clothing and footwear. Conversel...

More people are wearing new personal activity tracking devices. According to the latest market study by The NPD Group, annual 2015 unit sales of connected activity trackers experienced impressive growth of 85 percent versus 2014 -- that's despite a hike in the average selling price (ASP) from $96 to $109. "The increase in ASP speaks to these devices becoming more sophisticated, and that consumers are looking for better-quality devices, not just entry-level products," said Ben Arnold, executive director at The NPD Group . "This, combined with unit growth, shows that prices aren't falling to drive demand -- demand is increasing along with rising prices." Fitbit remained the leading brand in connected activity trackers in 2015, accounting for 79 percent of sales. The company has been the market leader in connected activity trackers since 2014, growing market share by more than 20 points since that time -- despite the entrance of new competing products in th...

Activity tracker shipments continued to grow in 2015 -- up almost 80 percent over 2014. Shipment totals will top 87 million in 2021 as these devices continue to lead consumers into the emerging wearable wireless connected health and well-being market, according to the latest market study by ABI Research. "Activity trackers are the current vanguard device for bringing consumers into connected medical services,” said Jonathan Collins, principal analyst at ABI Research . "As they continue to proliferate, they will spur greater investment in mHealth device development and adoption, as well as the services that can help bring the data these devices collect into health care provision." Essential Network Platforms and Infrastructure Despite the increasing popularity of activity trackers, the professional medical device market still awaits the shift to connected devices that has been underway in the consumer fitness market over the past few years. Connected medical devic...

Shipments of connected wearables reached 72.5 million in 2015, that's up from 25.3 million devices in the previous year, according to the latest worldwide market study by Berg Insight. Many of these devices have become a significant part of the emerging Internet of Things (IoT) phenomena. Increasing by a compound annual growth rate of 25.8 percent, total global shipments of smartwatches, smart glasses, fitness & activity trackers, people monitoring & safety devices and medical devices as well as other wearable devices are forecasted to reach 228.3 million units in 2020. Moreover, Bluetooth will remain the primary M2M wireless connectivity option in the coming years. However, a total of 17.8 million of the wearables sold in 2020 are forecasted to incorporate embedded cellular connectivity, mainly in the smartwatch and people monitoring & safety categories. Apple entered the connected wearables market in Q2-2015 and quickly became the leading smartwatch vendor. The ...

Wearable technology is about to evolve. The explosion of wearable devices was originally led by fitness bands. However, a combination of new vendors, new devices, and greater end-user awareness will now drive the worldwide wearables market higher in 2015. Vendors will ship a total of 45.7 million units in 2015, up a strong 133.4 percent from the 19.6 million units shipped in 2014, According to the latest global market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). By 2019, total shipment volumes are forecast to reach 126.1 million units, resulting in a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 45.1 percent. Propelling the market higher in 2015 is an increased focus on smart wearables, or those devices capable of running third-party applications. These include devices like the Apple Watch, the Motorola Moto 360, and the Samsung Gear watches. The total volume of smart wearables will reach 25.7 million units in 2015 -- that's up by 510.9 percent from the 4.2 million unit...

The introduction of open-source cloud computing services has helped to drive the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), enabling new forms of wireless digital devices that are able to both send and receive data that's stored online. Moreover, since the introduction of low-energy mobile communications began in the mid 2000s, we're moving beyond the early definition of IoT to now include consumer electronics (CE) devices which become part of the user's personal space. Case in point: research from Juniper Research has found that annual revenues from connected healthcare and fitness online services will approach $2 billion by 2019 --that's nearly six times the $320 million value estimated for this year. The findings from Juniper's latest market study also reveal that connected healthcare devices -- and the data they generate -- will offer substantial benefits to the consumers of these new products. However, cloud service deployments will initially be constrain...

User demand for wearable devices has distinct demographic segments. Age, income, and gender vary greatly among fitness tracker and smartwatch owners, according to the latest American market study by NPD Group. Purpose-built fitness trackers, which have a strong presence in the wearables market, have gained a large mainstream following. According to their study, 36 percent of fitness tracker owners in the U.S. market are 35-54 years old, 41 percent had an average income of more than $100,000, and 54 percent were women. Moreover, one-in-ten U.S. adults now own a fitness tracker. Smartwatches haven’t caught on as quickly, with only two percent penetration, and appeal to a much different segment of the market. More than two-thirds (69 percent) of smartwatch owners are 18-34 years old, skew mostly towards the male population (71 percent) and nearly half (48 percent) had an income below $45,000. "There is no average consumer for the wearables market; the fitness tracker a...

Wearable technology research and development has gained momentum during the last two years. Once compelling use cases become established, wearable devices will become a significant new product category in consumer electronics. Fitness trackers have been in use for several years, and are still the most widely used wearable devices. Although they have an uncertain future, with the challenge from multi-functional smart watches, trackers can carve out their own niche by appealing to different markets and consumer needs. According to the latest market study by Juniper Research , fitness wearables in-use will almost treble by 2018, compared to an estimated 19 million in-use devices during 2014. Juniper believes that fitness will remain the dominant wearables segment until that time, driven by intuitive software applications (apps) and lower retail prices. However, the broader appeal of smart watches will mean that they will be used more frequently in later years. Their study findings...

The digital health industry, as a concept, can be seen as the intersection of several industries -- the healthcare industry itself, the consumer electronics industry, the mobile industry and the broader IT industry, required for the establishment of EHRs (Electronic Health Records), for example. Though the healthcare sector has been in existence for hundreds of years, it is often accused of being very slow to adapt to the apparent market needs and technology advances outside of the medical profession. However forces acting upon it now, such as the increase in the proportion of the population who are of retirement age, are prompting a rethink as to how healthcare should be addressed. Many initiatives and concepts, such as accountable care, will need a modern digitized infrastructure to succeed. Healthcare focused smartphone interfaces launched by Samsung and Apple will be instrumental in propelling the global healthcare accessory hardware market to $3 billion by 2019, according to...

Both basic and smart wearable bands are an emerging high growth market. A total of 2.7 million wearable bands shipped worldwide in Q1 2014, according to the latest market study by Canalys. Fitbit maintained its leadership position with nearly 50 percent market share. Fitbit continued to ship most of the units in the basic band segment. Jawbone, another basic band competitor, also grew rapidly as it expanded its international distribution after the initial launch of the UP24 in Q4. Nike’s share of basic band shipments, however, dropped to 10 percent. "The Nike+ FuelBand has frankly been outmatched on sales," said Daniel Matte, analyst at Canalys . "Its competitors’ speed, international reach, broader channel distribution, integration with other fitness communities, superior web sites and multi-platform support have proven to be major advantages." Though Nike has been reported to be canceling future FuelBand products, the company’s focus is now on making use of ...

When you imagine the emerging market for Wearable Technologies, you'll likely think of eye glasses or wrist bands -- not garments or apparel. Think again; there's more innovation coming to the rapidly growing wearable tech category. According to the latest market study by IDTechEx Research , the evolving field of electronic textiles (e-textiles) describes new technology that is reliant on e-fibers for electronic, electro-optic and electrical functionality. Today, only conductive weavable fibers are widely available commercially. Include in that embroidery and other interleaving technologies using ribbon or fiber. IDTechEx finds that 24 percent of e-textile development projects develop better conductive fibers and another 24 percent concern photovoltaic fibers. Next comes 16 percent of projects on supercapacitors on fibers, with several projects seeking multi-functionality on one fiber, such as supercapacitor layers to store the harvested energy from piezoelectric vibratio...

As the potential for smart wearable devices continues to draw new entrants into the market, it is the sports and healthcare functionality that seems to dominate shipments and drives future wearable device adoption. Today, the most popular device functionality is heart rate monitoring with close to 12 million devices shipped in 2013, according to the findings from the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research. These are primarily single function devices that communicate with nearby hubs such as smartphones or activity sports watches. Pedometers and activity trackers were the next two most popular devices, accounting for around 16 million devices combined in 2013. "The market for wearable computing devices is driven by a growing range of wireless connected wearable sports, fitness and well-being devices," said Jonathan Collins, principal analyst at ABI Research. Heart rate and activity monitors will outpace shipments of smart watches and glasses for some years to ...

Mobilizing the Healthcare and Fitness industries is about to gain market momentum, particularly in developed nations. The converged mHealth and mFitness sectors are defined as the point where the mobile communications sector meets the healthcare sector and the fitness sector, respectively. According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, the mHealth market forecast for cumulative cost savings from remote patient monitoring will reach up to $36 billion globally, over the next five years. This is a significant opportunity, as healthcare in the developed world moves towards the concept of offering "accountable care" services -- where funding is linked directly to the health of the patient or individual rather than being based upon the cost of treatment. Even though remote patient monitoring -- particularly for chronic diseases -- is still at a very early stage in the development cycle, it fits well with new healthcare practices and the goal of keeping patients out...

According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, the next generation wearable devices market will be worth more than $1.5 billion by 2014 -- that's up from just $800 million this year. Juniper says that these wearable device revenues will be largely driven by consumer spending on fitness, multi-functional devices, and healthcare applications. Classified as a future form-factor for computing devices, next generation wearables -- including smart glasses and other head-mounted displays -- will provide a multitude of functions either independently or in conjunction with a third party platform. Juniper identifies 2014 to be the watershed year for wearable devices -- in terms of roll outs and market traction. Large influential players such as Google and Apple have already made key strategic moves in this sector. The use of wearable devices connected to a smartphone in the fitness and sports environment has grown rapidly in the last two years with applications such as Nik...