It is reported that almost one million Google Glass units will be sold by the end of the year once the smart eyewear is available to the public. And although the market is closely watching Google and Apple who are rumored to offer a smart watch, Samsung, Sony and other up-and-coming tech brands are offering computing watches that sell for under $200. Nike’s Fuel Band, FitBit and Jawbone are some of the fitness band juggernauts who are leading the market and analysts forecast more than 17 million fitness bands will be sold this year. These are just the basic building blocks when it comes to the wearable tech future.
From Social-Smart to Healthy-Smart
Remember when mobile phones were used for talking? That was before the flip phone got super smart and rocked our social life with apps that allowed us to get online, connect with others on the go, share photos and play word games. What the smartphone did for social is what the fitness bands are doing for health and wellness.
These simple wristbands are combining fitness, gaming, reporting, data transmitting, and location tracking to allow users a healthy approach to their mobile lifestyle. This sensor activity is one of the solutions that combine our social activities with the Internet Of Things and it is just the beginning in enhancing our lives.
Fashion Over Function
Wearable tech that provide features to track your heart rate when you sleep, measure the distance that you walk daily, allow you to check your Facebook status from your watch or take photos with the wink of an eye through your Google Glass are not really providing anything new to the market. Monitoring our health or the distance of our run, checking our social platforms, snapping and sharing photos are all functions that we have been doing for a while using our smartphones.
What is new is this. Wearable tech is getting fashionable. Remember when Steve Jobs shook up the desktop computer world with the non-beige neon iMacs? Design is taking center stage to the wearable tech world now and the new styles and fashions will be the motivators that will move the market to buy and transform the wearable tech and create a life style activated by sensors.
Here are some examples of wearable tech moving fashion forward:
- Google Glass has announced a recent partnership with the designer responsible for the styles behind Ray-Ban and Oakley eye wear.
- FitBit is partnering with fashion designer Tory Burch.
- And, an example of how the wrist band is evolving to a new design and style as a wearable fitness tracker is the Misfit Wearables’ Shine that looks like a necklace or a stylish pen designed for men or women to wear wherever they choose.
More Wearable Tech Trends
In addition to the typical wearable tech pieces like the smart eyewear or wrist wear, fashion and function are colliding to provide consumers smart solutions through many other products with sci-fi like features.
For example, fashion designer named Pauline van Dongen showcased her new line of apparel at SXSW called Wearable Solar that has built-in solar panels that allow users to charge their electronic devices. Backbacks are getting smarter and more powerful, too, providing solar charging capabilities to our devices while we are on the go. And, speaking of wearable tech that gets its social-savvy on, Ballentine’s tshirtOS provides t-shirts with built in LED screens that can be programmed to display any message or image you want.
What about you, have you seen any Jetson-like technologies that you think will become mainstream? What kind of wearable tech is on your wish list? What are you waiting for before you buy your next wearable gadget? Are you motivated by price, peer adoption or design and style?
What’s New With Wearable Tech? is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency