Gadgetory

I don't think anything in consumer tech right now deserves the label next big thing as much as smart wearables especially in the fitness category the Flex consists of a flexible rubbery band and a tiny tracker module which sits inside this gadget goes well beyond your average pedometer to measure sleep you tuck the one into a special cloth arm strap you wear in bed jawbone up features a bendable design crammed with sensors that track everything from what you eat to when you sleep it even logs mood swings for suppose a real alphanumeric OLED screen another SmartWatch like ability is phone notifications it runs Android it can count steps and measure your stride track your speed and how far you ran and it also has bluetooth so you can play music through a wireless headset the current design darling of activity monitors is the shine from misfit wearables that's worn on your wrist pocket or as a necklace now at this stage there's a lot of gerrymandering going on as we all try and figure out what constitutes the smart wearable category Fitness wearables smartwatches and augmented reality glasses all have a lot of distinctions but also a lot of overlap part of that is why you'll find some wild differences in the estimates of the market size from as much as 4.6 billion dollars this year to as little as one and a half billion dollars next year now we had seen that think that Fitness wearables really broke out around January 2013 at the Consumer Electronics Show prior to that this sort of tech was mostly found in either a triathletes wrist or in the pages of one of those dumb Airlines shopping magazines suddenly though the product started to speak to the needs of real people they're all using the currency of the 3 s's stairs steps and sleep no longer do you have to be into like body mass index measurement a CrossFit profile or a gym membership instead this is all real relatable to all of us the smartphone has become a sort of key it unlocks a lot of the richness of what the device is learning about you displaying it on its nice intuitive interface or also via web services that lets you not only really get deep into what's happening but also gamify your performance against people you know or the broader user population wearing that kind of device now as personal as Fitness wearables are there are at least two major parties that would love to look over your shoulder as you use one first of all a lot of corporations are now nibbling away at the idea of incenting you to wear one of these in exchange for perhaps better health insurance rates or other benefits they want to encourage you to be healthy but they might also then be able to find out if you're not it'll be an interesting development in the future secondly advertisers and marketers would love to have a look at this data and I have little doubt they will in some form let's face it millions and millions of dollars are wasted marketing weight loss programs to thin people and sports drinks to lazy people this kind of data coming off fitness devices in real time could really help to make a lot of that more efficient bottom line if 2013 set the table for Fitness wearables as we believe I agree with Juniper research that 2014 will be the breakout year for them but as that happens watch for some interesting cannibalization because smartwatches are coming along in parallel most of us I don't think you're gonna want to wear one of each but we do want the features from each who ends up owning that real estate on your wrist that'll be an interesting question to watch as we go in search of the next