Wearables are not only gadgets but also serious solutions for business

One of the most important technologies included in the strategic development plans of most major technology companies in the world, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and Nokia are called wearables. Smart watches, jewelry, wristbands packed with electronics are mainly associated with gadgets acquired by enthusiasts impatiently awaiting electronic novelties. It turns out, however, that a new market trend is increasingly appreciated by business customers who want to adapt this technology for their own purposes.

Wearable computers, simply speaking, are wearable electronic devices always switched on, easy to wear or put on, with access to the Internet, whose main feature is making all kinds of calculations in the background. These measurements are based on data received both from the environment and originating directly from a human body (e.g., information about vital functions).

What gives tremendous value to these solutions is the fact that they operate in real time. Furthermore, thanks to the designed interactions (e.g., on-screen alerts, colour changes following the occurrence of a given factor, voice control option) they are capable of a two-way communication between the human and the computer. A great advantage of wearables is that they are part of the close environment of the user, i.e., embedded in the user’s clothing (the so called intelligent textiles), jewellery worn on different parts of body (watches, rings, bracelets, armbands), responding to the user’s sports passions (cable-free headphones, sport cameras) and other items, both of corrective and ornamental nature (e.g., spectacles, contact lenses, smart tattoos).

Wearable technologies manufacturers race to “seize” the human wrist (here, the number of devices significantly exceeds the rest of the solutions). Companies also struggle to design the most useful items placed in the upper part of the human body (head, ears). Not only wearable technologies manufacturers but also other market participants, including business, know how much is at stake in this game …

Global sales of wearable technologies in 2014 amounted to approx. 90 million items. Forecasts for this year predict sales at 164.2 million (an increase of 82% comparing year to year), which clearly indicates a great leap forward in this category. It is worth noting that this is the initial stage of popularization of that technology – wearables penetration in 2014 amounted to 6.84% (global data) and only 3.86% in the domestic market. Read more >>

Article was written by Szymon Mydlarz, Product Manager/ UX Designer at Apollogic.