2016 has been undoubtedly a decisive year for the Internet of Things and wearable devices. Both of these revolutions in technology have come about to get the most attention in the tech arena today. However, even though these innovations have been the most talked about individually up until now, it is time to see how they pair with each other. The truth is, as and when these technology come together, we can expect really exciting innovations to hit the consumer market as well as impact the business landscape.
Both of these technologies are progressively complementing each other, and intimately wearable devices are revolutionizing Internet of Things.
Market Trends
When it comes to wearable devices, users will come across numerous options. Activity trackers, smart watches, smart glasses and embedded sensors are some of the most popular and definitely remarkable devices in Wearables. Predictive analytics integrated with EHR technology has led to emerging research opportunities.
For example, a research team from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore had recently presented a new graphene-based supercapacitor at the 252nd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Philadelphia. The flexible micro-supercapacitors have the capability to trigger new developments in the world of wearable technology, with a wide array of possibilities like smart T-shirts that can charge mobile phones or dishwashing robots.
While some of these technologies are yet to grow and scale, most of them have successfully generated huge interest and excitement amongst users. According to reports published in Rackspace, nearly 18% of the population in UK and US are quite dependant on Wearables. That’s not all; a whopping 71% of British people and 82% of Americans claim to lead better lives because of these devices.
IoT and Wearable devices: Complementing or Contending
The media and the world in general has been abuzz about the wearable technology and the Internet-of-Things. Initially, wearable devices had stipulated functions which have evolved or have been discarded over time. Today, wearable devices are no longer mediums to track fitness or see augmented views of the entire world around you.
There is no better time than now when it comes to opportunities for the IoT universe. The primitive idea was to enable sensor-equipped things and devices to communicate with each other in actionable ways. It’s now that present-day organizations require the undertaking of additional responsibilities.
Security will turn out to be a major concern, and it is up to the companies to decide how they will deal with the privacy or security issues.
Data analytics at its best
There is no denying the fact that Wearable devices will give birth to advanced data analytics. Businesses will have the golden opportunity to leverage this data, thus creating and providing customers with personalized products and services. They offer a unique possibility of being able to amassing profuse amounts of data. Through secure analytics it makes it better for consumer services. The ‘crunched data’ can be used to determine actionable insights, and in doing so provides additional user and enterprise benefits. IBM for example, offers easy to use predictive analytics products and solutions that meet the specific needs of different users and skills to operate. RapidMiner also is an advanced business analytics workbench for data mining, predictive analysis and text mining that can efficiently churn out reduction and sentiment analysis.
Wearable’s represent a multi-billion dollar industry. Sports and fitness performance markets at $3.5 billion in 2014 are anticipated to reach $14.9 billion by 2021. It’s not only the consumer markets reaping the benefits of IoT and wearable tech. Healthcare sectors will also experience some of the greatest advantages. With a more precise and comprehensive understanding of patients, healthcare sectors will offer targeted services.
Consumers speak:
When it comes to discussing the consumer market, it’s highly imperative to consider both the forces. Since consumers are as important as the service providers, what is exactly in store for them?
Both public sector organizations and government bodies are considering the huge potentials of wearable devices along with their impact on IoT. As far as users are concerned, the following statistics should give you a clearer idea.
Among wearable technology devices, wearables for fitness applications and technology will see the fastest short-term growth, with 13 percent of consumers planning to purchase within the next year and a total of 33 percent looking to adopt in the next five years. Fitness wearables have been resonating well with New Zealand consumers, for example, in part because New Zealand is a sporting nation at heart, and these devices are able to improve the users tracking capabilities. As a result, New Zealand fitness wearable adoption lifted from 9%, in 2015, to 11% adoption in 2016.
Almost 47 percent and 61 percent of wearable tech users felt intelligent and more informed because of this revolutionary union of IoT and wearables. IDC, the research firm has recently laid out the report that states that it expects global sales of wearables to grow 29.4 percent to some 103 million units in 2016. That follows 171 percent growth in 2015, fueled primarily by the launch of the Apple Watch and a variety of fitness bands.
End game
With these developments in the tech arena, Wearable devices are undoubtedly taking Internet-of-things in the right direction. With the estimation of over $6 trillion to be invested on IoT solutions over the next five years, India can position itself in a growth pattern to discover solutions unique to the country and tend to its users. With a solid and intimate strategy to combine this technology with business intelligence, a lot can be achieved. Imagination is just the beginning.
Vishwas Mudagal is a hardcore techie and best-selling author to building a multi-million-dollar company. He consults and supports global companies & startups build strategies and enter new markets, build innovative products and set up and scale software services, R&D and offshore development centres.
