If 2014 was the
year wearable technologies learned to walk, then 2015 is the year they'll run.
And it's inside the enterprise where wearables will pick up speed.
In a Forrester
Research survey of 3,000 global technology and business decision-makers, 68%
said that wearables are a priority for their company, with 51% calling it a
moderate, high, or critical priority.
Consumers
haven't been as eager. Yet Forrester analysts say that in the coming year more
consumers will turn their lonely eyes (and wrists) to wearables, spurred by the
arrival of Apple Watch. Forrester predicts the Apple Watch will pull in 10
million users next year.
So what are the
big business and consumer trends that will define wearables in 2015? Consider
these four predictions.
1. Smart glasses
testing picks up in the workplace.
More CIOs realized in 2014 that the hands-free nature of smart glasses has the
potential to improve efficiency for workers who use their bodies and hands.
Think: manufacturing-floor technicians, construction workers, and doctors.
You won't find
many hospital staffs using Google Glass every day, but the device is being
actively tested for quick, hands-free access to patient records and vital
signs. Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is the first hospital in
the country to roll out Google Glass to an entire department for daily
use. The rollout followed four months of pilot testing. At the hospital, an app
designed for Glass can read a unique QR code in each patient's room and
immediately access the patient's electronic medical record.
Another
real-world example worth noting -- referenced in a recent Forrester wearables forecast report -- is Japan Airline's
use of Google Glass to help maintenance crews inspect planes on the tarmac. The
entire crew captures video and photos using Glass and sends them to a central
office where technical safety pros evaluate the airplane's condition.
On the consumer
side, Google Glass has created tension for being expensive and
an invasion of privacy, but its hands-free capabilities are seen as a business
asset in enterprise environments where price, social stigma, and privacy fears
are less of a concern.
APX Labs, which
created Skylight, a software platform for building business
applications for smart glasses like Google Glass and the Epson Moverio, has
been in the thick of enterprise adoption. CEO Brian Ballard considers 2014 a
turning point.
"We've seen
uptake in the field service, logistics, and manufacturing markets," said
Ballard. For the first time, he said, companies are coming to APX after buying
and testing Google Glass for employees.
"They know
Google Glass works for them and are asking us to provide a platform they can
build on," he said. "That never happened in 2013,
and it bodes well for more testing in 2015 and future enterprise adoption of
wearables."
2. Consumers and
businesses warm up to smartwatches.
All eyes are on the Apple Watch to see if it energizes consumers the way the
iPod and iPhone did.
"FitBit and
Samsung have helped incite this growing interest [in wrist-based wearables],
but Apple Watch has the best chance of turning wearables into a mass-market
category," Forrester's Gownder wrote in a column for InformationWeek.
Apple certainly
has a flair for seizing trends at the right moment, and the timing is right for
smartwatches. Even though products from Samsung (Galaxy Gear and Gear 2) and
Motorola (Moto 360) have received a lukewarm response due to weak battery life
and overreliance on a compatible smartphone, heavyweights like Google (with its
Android Wear OS) and Salesforce.com (with its Salesforce Wear developer platform) are still betting on the
future of wearable tech.
Yet the fact
remains: Consumers haven't been buying up smartwatches. While Apple Watch has
the advantage of Apple's marketing muscle and a built-in base of high-end
customers, it is not a guaranteed winner, as it still relies on the iPhone for
many features, and its battery life is a mystery. (Apple has avoided the
subject.)
Nevertheless, a
Forrester survey of 4,500 online US adults shows we're getting more curious
about the smartwatch form factor in general -- 42% of respondents are
interested in buying a wrist-based wearable, up from 28% in 2013. That rated
higher than all other body locations offered in the survey, including the ear
(headphones), the face (glasses), and the foot (clipped on a shoe).
And as it was
with the iPhone, consumer adoption will carry over into work. Gownder predicts
Apple Watches will slowly start showing up on employees' wrists, requiring an
extension of a company's existing BYOD strategy.
3. Wearables app
developers won't make money.
This may be a tough year for developers excited about wearables that are
used to reaping financial rewards from successful smartphone apps, said Ballard
of APX Labs.
Most mobile apps
are either free with revenue coming from ads, or cost a dollar or two, and that
model needs a huge user base to work -- something smart glasses and
smartwatches don't have. "You won't see the next Candy Crush on Google
Glass in 2015," said Ballard.
But there are
still opportunities for app developers in the low-volume, but potentially
high-paying, enterprise wearables space.
"A company
could say to a developer, 'You did great job on our smartphone app, do you want
to create the same app for Google Glass?' And they'll write the developer a
contract," said Ballard.
"But that's
very different from the 'app store' market where millions of smartphone users
pick and choose."
4. Wearables
expanding to clothes, pets, even pills.
Most of us think of glasses and wristwear when we think of wearable tech, but
devices on or in clothing will ramp up in 2015, said Forrester's Gownder.
The wrist was
the most popular body location in the aforementioned Forrester survey, but
wearables clipped onto clothing were No. 2, with 35% saying they're
interested. Nineteen percent of respondents said they're interested in
wearables embedded in clothing.
"Ralph
Lauren got the conversation going at this year's US Open [tennis tournament] by
equipping ball boys with Polo Tech smart shirts," Gownder said. The Polo Tech
shirts, designed for athletes, use built-in sensors to track the wearer's heart
rate and movement, and send that data to a mobile app via a Bluetooth-enabled
sensor in the shirt.
Other
clothing-based wearables gaining interest among tech enthusiasts include Ducere's Lechal smart shoes and Wearable
Experiments' Navigate jacket, which both use haptic feedback
(vibrations) to give directions. The left or right smart shoe will vibrate, and
the jacket will squeeze your left or right shoulder to indicate where to turn.
Skeptics may see this as excessive tech and argue, somewhat justifiably, that
walking directions are available via smartphone or smartwatch. But one of the
goals of integrating tech, fashion, and fitness in 2015 and beyond is to make the wearable "invisible" -- to be heard or
felt but not seen.
In the coming
year, Forrester also sees wearable and Internet of Things (IoT) technology
expanding past clothing and wrists and onto our pets via devices from FitBark and Voyce for activity
tracking and remote monitoring; inside our bedrooms through devices like Withings Aura
Smart Sleep System that tracks sleep; and even inside our
bodies with a product like the PillCam, a pill-shaped camera that navigates a person's
gastrointestinal track when swallowed.
With such a
broad range, the name "wearables" may no longer suffice. How about
Everywhereables?
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Shane O'Neill is
Managing Editor for InformationWeek. Prior to joining InformationWeek, he
served in various roles at CIO.com, most notably as assistant managing editor
and senior writer covering Microsoft. He has also been an editor and writer at
eWeek and TechTarget.