Fitness wearables have received increased traction this year largely due to the increasing number of functionalities featured on newer models entering the market. The Sony Smart Band for example, introduced new features that enable users to track things such as the number of pictures they took on their mobile devices and other activities they do on these devices including time spent browsing the internet, listening to music and watching videos (apart from the basic fitness tracking such as counting the number of steps and calories). In the beginning, fitness wearables' takeup was driven mainly by health and fitness maintenance purposes as the built-in sensors on these devices allowed consumers who are health conscious to keep tab on their physical activity and ramp up their fitness routine when it is required. In the last one year however, fitness wearables have evolved both in aesthetics and functionalities, incorporating smarter applications and a wider tracking capability making them much more appealing to a wider consumer group.
In its recent report, Juniper Research expects that the number of fitness wearables in use to treble by 2018 to about 70 million devices compared to the estimated 19 million in-use this year. The fitness wearables are part of the smart wearables market, which includes another fast growing vertical - the smartwatch. In another of its report released earlier last month, Juniper expects the revenue from the smart wearables segment to surpass USD53 billion by 2019. The smartwatch segment saw a lot of activity this year with major brands such as Apple coming into the picture. While fitness wearables are focused on monitoring health (heart rate reading, sugar levels etc) and physical activities (such as running and walking and calories burnt), smartwatches offer a different value proposition. Smartwatches can be used to access a number of functionalities on the smartphone for example receive calls and text, social media notifications and alerts. Smartwatches can also be paired with another health monitoring device (heart rate tracker) or connected to a location tracking system such as GPS, enabling users to somewhat keep track of their movements and health. On the far end of the spectrum, smartwatches can have their own SIM, enabling them to act as a standalone connected device without the need to be paired to a smartphone via Bluetooth, which is always the case for a fitness wearable. Some newer versions of smartwatches come with their own 360 degree rotating cameras, audio functions and luxury finishing.
For end consumers, the line between what is a smartwatch and what is a fitness wearable is fast blurring as newer smartwatches and fitness wearables are trying to expand their 'scope' of functionalities to cover as many features as they can offer. According to Juniper, while basic fitness wearables or fitness trackers such as the Xiaomi MiBand offer tracking of steps and movements, more complex devices such as Fitbit Surge, Microsoft Band and Samsung Gear Fit are throwing in features such as notifications and music control. These more complex versions will be taking on the smartwatches, which are still focused on retaining the 'watch' look and feel while offering easy access to key features on the customer's smartphone and topping that up with some health monitoring applications. Juniper expects the fitness wearables segment to continue leading the smart wearables market over the next 4 years, afterwhich the smartwatch is expected to take over. As for customers, it looks like in the interim, both gadgets have their own value to offer, so for those who can fork out the money, the smartphone, the smartband and the smartwatch trio will make up a complete personal connectivity suite.
