Over the past two years, wearables have gone from a niche market to a revolutionary force.
San Diego, CA (PRWEB) June 26, 2014
Wearable sensors enabled by low-power wireless components, mobile apps, cloud computing and a receptive fashion industry has created a technology tsunami for developers and investors, according to global technology research firm, ON World.
“Over the past two years, wearables have gone from a niche market to a revolutionary force,” says Mareca Hatler, ON World’s research director. “Developers from all major industries are seeing opportunities for sensor-enabled wearables, integrated cloud applications and services, as well as the next fashion trend.”
Over the next five years, 700 million wearable tech devices will be shipped for a global annual market worth $47.4 billion at this time. Hardware will make up the majority of the revenues during this period but mobile apps and subscriptions will grow faster. The wearables industry will rapidly create new fashion lines, and this is where manufacturers will break new ground.
With over 400 unique products, the mobile sensing wearables market tripled in 2013 over the previous year and continues to accelerate with the emergence of new product categories such as smart watches, smart glasses, consumer wearable sensors, as well as growing industrial and enterprise solutions. Out of the 70,000 product reviews that ON World evaluated, 60% were completed in 2013 and the first quarter of 2014. Some categories such as smart watches have increased by a factor of ten, and personal sensors increased by over 500 percent.
ON World has identified over 50 smart watch vendors, including sports watches, luxury watches, and offerings for children such as the HereO GPS watch. By contrast, there are only about a dozen smart glasses developers, but they are on track to become a $5 billion market by 2017. A few other emerging mobile sensing wearable product categories include jewelry (e.g., Netatmo and Cuff), baby vital sign monitors (e.g., Rest Devices, Owlet and Enmovere) and pet activity/location trackers (e.g., Tagg, Voyce and Whistle). Investment in wearables hardware companies is accelerating, with almost $500 million invested in 2013 alone.
Sensor fusion and cloud-based software and services has become the next “killer” platform. Nest’s recently launched developer program is already showing the potential for integrating wearables with smart home systems such as Jawbone’s UP fitness tracker with Nest’s smart thermostats.
ON World's recently published report, Mobile Sensing Wearables, may be purchased separately or as part of a report set that also includes a survey on wearable technologies with 1,000+ consumers. More information is available from http://www.onworld.com/wearables
About ON World:
ON World (http://www.onworld.com) provides global business intelligence on smart technology markets. For the past decade, our market research and information services have been sold to Fortune 1000 companies, startups and investors worldwide.
Contact:
Mary Purvis
p: 858-259-2397
e: purvis(at)onworld(dot)com