The wearable devices market currently caters to a bit of a niche consumer: early-adopter technophile with enough disposable income to support another mobile connection and device. According to new analysis from Frost & Sullivan, however, coming improvements in devices and new use cases will accelerate the transition to mass market proliferation.
The new report, Growth Opportunities in the Global Wearable Devices Market , found that the most popular devices right now are smart watches and fitness bands, but moving forward, medical wearable devices will play a large role, delivering improved services through patient monitoring and post-surgery rehab applications.
“Wearable devices will extend beyond fitness tracking to include two-way communication between the user and the healthcare ecosystem,” said Shuba Ramkumar, Senior Research Analyst, information and communication technologies, Frost & Sullivan. “Though a number of applications currently address the business-to-consumer market, wearable devices will eventually offer support to healthcare institutions by sharing real-time data collected by the consumer.”
Image via Shutterstock Batteries will become an ever more pressing concern, despite recent advancements, and worries about unreliable data will slow adoption, the report said. Regulation via strict privacy and security laws can alleviate concerns about the latter problems and creating these data regulation laws will require cooperation between technology vendors, legal institutions, and governments to be successful.
“In the long-term, energy harvesting and wireless charging technologies will reduce battery issues, helping wearables to capture the interest of consumers,” Ramkumar said. “Assuming battery and data accuracy issues are resolved, the real value of wearable devices will accrue as part of the Internet of Things ecosystem, enabling communication of data across devices.”
The future of the wearable market will be the focus of the Wearable Tech Expo , collocated with the IoT Evolution Expo , next week, August 17 to 20 at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas. Be there.
