Google, Fitbit and What is Coming with Wearable Technology

Wearable technology presents the potential for massive transformation in many industries. Wearable technology today represents an array of products including watches, wristbands, and various clothing items. 

Wearable computing is one of the next frontiers in ICT and represents a substantial market opportunity for the semiconductor industry, consumer electronics companies, M2M companies, wireless communications companies, and next generation application developers.  

New Wearable Tech Business Models

Mind Commerce sees the future encompassing new business models and use cases that will present both huge challenges and opportunities, which will test alliances between various entities in the value chain including network operators, component suppliers, application developers, and industry intermediaries.

New business models will develop that place wearable tech at the center of communications, applications, content, and commerce without the need for handheld devices of any type. However, the market will evolve in ways that surprise many people.

Wearables to evolve to become a utility for communications...

Mind Commerce has always thought that smart watch and fitness band offerings are a fad (as per the current functionality) but a necessary pioneering product as part of the wearable technology market. However, wearable technology that acts as a conduit for communications to Wide Area Networks (WAN) and connection to Personal Area Networks (PAN) is a different story.

Wearable devices will ultimately become one of the primary mediums for communication, infotainment services, health solution, textile, military, and industrial solutions. The entire wearable technology ecosystem will be built around Body Area Network (BAN), Augmented Reality (AR), sensor networks, short range P2P communication modalities, and utilization for ambient awareness.

Wearable Technology in Healthcare

There will be economic incentives to wear wearable technology. Ranging from tele-medicine to self-monitoring and diagnosis, wearable devices and the Internet of Things (IoT) will start as a novelty and achieve necessity status as insurance company cost optimization become the main driver for adoption and usage.

There will be economic incentives to wear wearables...

One of the core reasons for wearables in healthcare is to transmit information for medical support from a licensed professional. However, there is also a market for “quantified self” in healthcare, which refers to the incorporation of technology into data acquisition on aspects of a person's daily life. This enables a “Do it Yourself” (DIY) tool for consumers to self-monitor and self-report important wellness items such as blood pressure.

Wearable devices for medical, wellness, and fitness purposes are many and varied, consisting of various form factors depending on the purpose and placement on the human body. Wearable devices can worn and/or integrated into apparel to become less intrusive. Sensors (biomechanical, motion, etc.) may be placed at specific parts of the body to communicate with an overall Body Area Network system. 

Looking beyond simply wearables is the emerging area of “implantables” (e.g. devices implanted within the body). This includes everything from pacemakers to devices that monitor key wellness levels within the body such as blood-sugar, reducing or illuminating the need for direct patient involvement.

Miniaturization of monitoring devices and power sources has opened up new opportunities for wearable and implantable technologies. This is especially true in the field of healthcare, an industry that is in great need for mass-personalization at efficient and effective scale and scope. 

Wearable Technology in Mobile Commerce

The mobile payments market is another example, representing a market that has moved well-beyond its origins of niche status and is now poised for adoption of new payment technologies such as next generation contactless payments, converged mobile wallets, integration of digital currency (like Bitcoin), wearable payment solutions, and payments through implanted chips into the human body. 

The overall electronic payments market will also accelerate transformation towards a cashless society. Many improvements will be witnessed as the ecosystem streamlines front-end processes to leverage efficiencies enabled by back-end systems. At the front-end will be both wearable and "implantable" technologies for payment.

Next Move for Google: Pay-per-Gaze and Pay-per-Emotion Advertising

Google has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Fitbit, a leading wearables brand.

What will the company likely do? Look for them to integrate the technology into many other areas including advertising. The company will likely develop haptics and artificial intelligence to provide innovative marketing solutions such as Pay-per-Gaze (Augmented Reality headgear) and Pay-per-Emotion (smart bands such as Fitbit).

The Pay-per-Gaze model was a first of its kind patent to the wearable devices industry. It mainly works with wearable smart glasses. This is something that is patented by Google including the following: A gaze tracking technique is implemented with a head mounted gaze tracking device that communicates with a server. The server receives scene images from the head mounted gaze tracking device which captures external scenes viewed by a user wearing the head mounted device.

See more about the Google Pay-per-Gaze patent.

Pay-per-Emotion is another form of advertising which involves wearable devices. The advertiser will only pay when the consumer shows interest (emotionally) in the advertiser’s products. For instance, if a consumer is watching an ad on TV and then he reacts to it by saving the advertiser’s phone number, website or contact information, the advertiser will be charged. 

Wearable Technology just one of Many Key Google Acquisitions

Fitbit represents one of Google's largest acquisitions to date. Other notable M&A for the company include:

• Motorola Mobility $12.5 billion
• Nest Labs $3.2 billion
• Doubleclick $3.1 billion
• Looker $2.6 billion
• Fitbit $2.1 billion
• YouTube $1.65 billion
• Waze $1.15 billion
• HTC Pixel unit $1.1 billion
• AdMob $750 million
• ITA $700 million
• DeepMind $650 million

Learn more about the Wearable Technology Market

Wearable technology represents a relatively narrow range of form factors yet a very wide array of use cases for enterprise, industry, and consumer segments. One of the most important focus areas is Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality in which ease of use and convenience are extremely important factors for adoption and continual usage. 

Certain wearable devices are anticipated to be on the body at all times, serving the purpose of communications with other devices, which may be directly or indirectly within the control of the individual user. Learn more about the wearable technology market from Mind Commerce.