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RIP Pebble… The wearable maker that pioneered wrist-based notifications before Apple and many others waded into the smartwatch space has confirmed it’s closing its doors as an independent entity.
Late last month rumors emerged that Fitbit was set to acquire Pebble — with our sources telling us the price-tag was between $34 million and $40M, a figure they said “barely” covered the startup’s debts. Although the company avoided an explicit confirmation of the rumor by tweeting a shrug emoji until now.
Today Pebble’s CEO Eric Migicovsky has published a blog with official confirmation of the acquisition and details of what will happen to Pebble products. The post does not confirm the acquisition price, however....
Welcome to Part 2 of our latest blog series giving you early access to the upcoming BrainXchange-Hewlett Packard Enterprise white paper, which examines several real-life use cases of wearables at work in different enterprise operations. In Part 1, we shared an example of how an advanced collaboration platform like HPE’s MyRoom/VRG coupled with wearable technology could revolutionize the automotive recall process for a major auto manufacturer. Today we will see how a heavy machinery manufacturer could use wearables to provide remote support and on-the-spot training to its partners and customers. The complete white paper will be available for free download on May 18th. Sign up today to receive the white paper directly in your inbox when it goes live.
The wearable computing industry has seen important activity this year on the public markets side. In March, Apple’s smartwatch was released, with some estimates pegging the device’s sales at 20% of all wearables units sold globally in Q2’15. In June, fitness band maker Fitbit went public at a valuation of $4.1B.
Despite these high-profile events, the funding climate for still-private companies in the wearable computing space has cooled off. Dollars invested in wearable technologies in 2015 are on track to hit $276M at the current run-rate, a drop of 72% compared to 2014′s total, according to CB Insights data, and the lowest annual funding total since 2010.
Meanwhile, deals are likely to finish the year at close to 50, down ~15% from 2014 numbers....
Google Glass and Apple Watch capture most of the headlines when it comes to wearables, but there are other devices on the market today bringing us closer to a more high-tech future. And while there are concerns about this sort of technology overstepping boundaries, such devices can improve lives in the right situation.
As a refresher (or introduction), wearables come in the form of eye wear, smartwatches and wristbands. Companies are developing wearable devices primarily for the consumer market (think health and fitness gadgets), but some can be used in an industrial setting. For example, some companies are evaluating Google Glass for business use cases such as field service operations and repair and maintenance work.
That said, market research indicates wearables have the potential to move from a tech fad to a necessity.
With the arrival of more user-friendly wearables, cheaper devices and consumer awareness, expect to see more people purchase them. Tech aficionados will be the first adopters, but in the next 10 years wearables can be as ubiquitous as the smartphone is with consumers today.
A report from the Transparency Market Research estimates the global market for wearables was $750 million in 2012 and expected to reach $5.8 billion in 2018. Juniper Research says that the market could be as big as $19 billion by 2018....
...Given how quickly the wearables market is developing, Snodgrass believes marketers need to carve out a small amount of budget now to do what he calls micro-tests. “Focus half of your mobile team on trying to understand and explore how this new market works. At the least, the market share for mobile will flow naturally into the market share for wearables.
”Schonfeld concurs, saying marketing teams will benefit from some wearables-spurred experimentation — even if it doesn’t yet lead to integrating wearables in the marketing strategy. “For quantified-self wearables, it’s all about the data. How can brands tap into that data or enhance it to actually deliver value to consumers? Glass is more experimental, but thinking about ways to market on a heads-up screen could lead to broader insights about mobile marketing in general.”...
Since 2009, investors have poured over half a billion dollars into wearable tech startups.
This isn’t surprising when you consider that wearable tech (including smart glasses, watches, and fitness bands) is still an early adopter market and already estimated to be worth $3 billion.
In 2016, estimates suggest that 100 million wearable tech devices will be shipped. That’s ten times the number of devices expected to ship in 2014.
So, how does this affect our jobs as marketers? What might we be doing differently in 2016 or 2020, if wearable technology reaches the level of adoption that’s expected?...
It's uncertain if wearable devices will be the huge hit some predicted. Here's a look at 10 key factors that will make the devices successful.
If you’re looking for the travel sector’s biggest new technology trend of 2014 so far, it is hard to dismiss wearable technology. Having previously been viewed as technologies of the future, airlines in particular have started to embrace smartglasses and smartwatches, elevating the technology right into the here and now.
Virgin Atlantic made the first move in February, announcing a trial of Google Glass and the Sony Smartwatch at the Upper Class Wing at London Heathrow Airport, using the products to greet passengers by name, provide real-time travel information and start the check-in process before the passenger even reached the front door of the terminal.
Since then we have seen Vueling, Iberia and airberlin launch smartwatch boarding passes, while Allegiant Systems has revealed its Vuzix-based smartglasses concept. London City Airport has also confirmed that it is exploring how it can leverage Google Glass from an airport operations perspective....
Today, there are many companies competing for innovation in the field of wearable tech. Smartphones, tablets, and computers have advanced rapidly, but it looks like the future lies in wearable smart devices. Not only can wearable technology make our lives easier, but it can also help to make the lives of many with illnesses or disabilities more comfortable and productive. Let’s take a look at a few of the most anticipated smart devices changing the way we use technology.
I’ll admit it: I have had a serious crush on a wearable device (or two). I’ve gotten down with aJawbone Up, fallen for a Fitbit Force, and even messed around with a Misfit (Shine). I’ve serially dated activity-tracking apps like Moves and Breeze.
But I’ve had to break up with them all.
For starters, I’ve never gotten enough back to make these relationships worthwhile. Yes, I now know that I walk more on Mondays than on Fridays, and that my sleep deteriorates over the course of the week. Big whoop. Having this information hasn’t changed my life.
I was promised a superhuman level of understanding in exchange for the rights to collect, save and analyze my personal data. I still don’t have that. I’m still the same old me.
The news that Nike is abandoning wearables should be a wake-up call. We are missing an incredible opportunity. How do we get back this industry back on track?...
With a flood of wearable gadgets now on the market, Forrester Research warns that companies need to create better software for consumers to give them feedback around their daily routines.
Here's an expert run-down of the sensors that make a wearable device useful--plus what they do and how much they cost.
When the duo behind MbientLab tried to make a consumer product, it ended up where a lot of billion-dollar ideas do: on Kickstarter. “It failed miserably," says CTO Matt Baker. "What we learned after many months is building a brand and a consumer product is challenging. Instead, we decided to go back and stick to our guns as engineers,” he says. What they came up with next was timed perfectly for a world that is just waking up to the killer potential of wearable computing.
Instead, they built the MetaWear board: a wearable electronics homebrew kit that allows anyone to create a production-ready wearable device prototype "in 30 minutes or less." No programming skills are required. It works out of the box. And it lets people play in Bluetooth-connected products who previously wouldn’t have had the technical chops. (And yes, this one is on Kickstarter too.)...
My Nike FuelBand read lazy. My friend’s read fit.
But we had done essentially the same thing. We spent the day walking around San Francisco together — the same number of miles, same number of hills — but for whatever reason, our FuelBands were out of step. His registered thousands of steps more than mine did.
That’s the uncomfortable truth about many of the fitness wristbands you see people wearing. They don’t really work — or at least not as well as their manufacturers would have you believe....
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Amazon Prime day is here, giving shoppers yet another day (Cyber Monday, Black Friday, Ruby Tuesday*) to hunt for bargains online.
If you’re not a Prime member already – there’s a 30 day free trial on offer, so there’s no need to miss out.
Here are 5 of the top wearable tech deals we’ve found and, don’t worry, we’ve checked that these are genuine bargains and not just reductions on hiked up prices in the lead up to the big sale day…
The next several years will continue to see double-digit growth in the number of Americans using wearable devices, according to eMarketer's first wearables forecast. In 2015, 39.5 million US adults 18 and over will use wearables, including smartwatches and fitness trackers. That's a jump of 57.7% over 2014. While penetration among US adults is just 16.0% this year,
eMarketer expects that to double by 2018, to 81.7 million users.eMarketer defines wearable users as those who wear accessories or clothing at least once per month that are embedded with internet-connected electronics and exchange data with a manufacturer or other connected device....
The Internet of Things is expected to grow to approximately 75 billion connections by 2020, merging our physical and online worlds. The implications for both consumers and marketers are obvious and far-reaching — as more consumers connect their everyday lives to an increasing number of smart devices, marketers will have the opportunity to not only better understand the lifestyles and habits of their customer, but offer even more personal and intimate contextual experiences than ever before.
Below are a few of the implications for both consumers and marketers as the Internet of Things continues to evolve.
GThough the Internet of Things era has only just started, it may already be broken.
Like generals fighting the last war instead of the next one, many companies working to build the Internet of Things seem to be stuck in the smartphone and tablet era, embracing approaches that will soon be obsolete, if they aren’t already.
Today, smartphones are powerful hubs surrounded by less intelligent objects. Each device is managed and operated from a few centralized data centers. This is not yet a major issue as devices currently last only a year or two before being decommissioned. The cost of managing data centers is limited in duration and underwritten by a constant flood of replacement devices with short lives.
Not so in the Internet of Things era: an LED lightbulb has an expected life of 20+ years; aircraft are expected to remain in service for decades; the average car on the road in the US is now more than a decade old.
Applying a centralized cloud-based business model to these devices will mean decades of expense without decades of associated revenue. At IBM we already see clients that are struggling with device-related services that have failed to meet revenue targets, but cannot be switched off for fear of angering an installed base....
From Smart Phones to Tablets, NotePads and Phablets and now to Wearable Bands, the market for smart gadgets just keeps growing. Dubbed as the next big thing is the technology market, the Wearable Bands, both basic and smart versions, are small devices worn on the body, monitoring and providing data on a variety of attributes, especially on fitness, lifestyle and health.
Canalys, an independent analyst company covering technology sectors, in its recently published country level quarterly estimates, expects a total of 2.7 million wearable bands shipped worldwide in Q1 2014, with smart bands making up close to 500,000 units. Pebble Technology leads the market for the smart wearable bands, followed by Sony and Samsung, with shares of 35%, 29% and 23% respectively....
This is why Google's launch yesterday of Android Wear, its wearable platform, is likely to see so much interest. Developers still need to build the "killer app" designed uniquely for wearables that will make the devices compelling for still-skeptical mainstream consumers. Now, with Android Wear, they have a major platform to build for . In a new report from BI Intelligence, we make sense of the current wearable apps landscape, look at why app ecosystems are currently so minimally stocked, explore the types of wearables that are likeliest to take off, and try to pinpoint a few "killer apps" that could make the devices truly compelling. We also look at the strong potential for Google or Apple to instantly take over the app market....
Concerted efforts from industry and academia for over two decades have resulted into host of sophisticated products and devices being launched in the market. The potential of the industry can be gauged by the fact that both – the big and established players and small start-ups have up their ante in wearable electronics market.
The global market was worth more than $2.5 billion in revenue in 2012 and is expected to cross $8 billion in 2018, growing at a healthy CAGR of 17.7% from 2013 to 2018. In terms of products, wrist-wear accounted for the largest market revenue in 2012, with total revenue of the most established wearable electronic products – wrist-watches and wrist-bands combined, crossing $850 million.
Among application sectors, consumer applications accounted for the largest market share, with revenue crossing $2 billion, as of 2012. However, that of enterprise and industrial application is expected to grow at the highest CAGR (more than 21%), during the forecast period of 2013 to 2018. North America, with U.S. accounting for more than 80% of the market is the single largest revenue base for this global market, and is expected to maintain its dominance during the forecast period as well. However, the market in Asia–Pacific, with China leading the way, is likely to grow at the highest CAGR during the next five years....
Huge innovations are being made with wearable technology. Do you have an idea to #makeitwearable? Get involved now at makeit.intel.com
Let’s change the world together. Wearable technology is taking the world into new realms, making technology personal and seamless to use. MAKE IT WEARABLE is a global initiative to inspire ideas and fuel innovation that will evolve personal computing in exciting new ways....
The age of Internet ubiquity has arrived.
The world is moving beyond standalone devices into a new era where everything is connected.
We've created a slideshow highlighting the key trends and forecasts for the entire Internet-connected ecosystem, including connected TVs, connected cars, wearable computing devices, and all of the consumer and business tools that will soon be connected to the "Internet Of Things."...
If you were travelling Upper Class with Virgin Atlantic from Heathrow this spring, you might have been checked in by staff wearing Google Glass. The airline says it was trialling Glass as an “innovative pilot scheme”. “Trial” may be an overstatement, as Glass is nowhere near ready to go mainstream: it is probably more accurate to say that this was a stunt to raise brand awareness – something Virgin is very good at.
Glass is probably the most visible and best-known of the current crop of “wearables” – which include smartwatches, biometrics monitoring devices and wearable cameras – which is quite an achievement for Google, given that it is available only to a small coterie of early adopters who have been prepared to shell out $1,500 for the privilege of being beta testers and walking adverts for Google....
Wearable tech is fighting an uphill battle – and no amount of pedometers or heart-rate monitors will make that climb easier. New evidence shows consumers are already bored with wearables, despite the category’s short existence thus far.
A study published in April by research firm Endeavour Partners reports that over fifty percent of American consumers who own a fitness tracker don’t use it anymore, while a third of those consumers stopped after only six months. As the most well-known and visible representatives of the wearable tech category on the market right now, it’s difficult not to view fitness trackers’ failures as signifying a deeper problem. The question: are wearables doomed to be remembered as a footnote in history, a mere tech-fad like netbooks?...
For better or worse you are going to be judged by your appearance. Fat people are paid less than their fitter colleagues, blonde women get higher tips than any other demographic, and handsome people? They tend to get paid handsomely[1]. The wearable technology of the past present and future shown below must therefore add value,and have aesthetic appeal.
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![THE INTERNET OF EVERYTHING: 2014 [SLIDE DECK] | Internet of Things & Wearable Technology Insights | Scoop.it](https://img.scoop.it/f6CNrNCAJI1-CpdjrSxTITl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVvK0kTmF0xjctABnaLJIm9)
"This is the end…" As Jim Morrison and the doors would sing. Pebble will disappear amid questions about whether there really is a growth market for smart watches. That's a challenge for any product that does the same thing your smartphone can do.