Consumer adoption of smart wearables is now nearly half (48%) of U.S. Internet households, Kristen Hanich, director of research for Parks Associates, told a Connected Health Summit audience Thursday, signaling that the category is “crossing the chasm” -- or moving from early adopters to the mainstream.
Five years ago, “adoption was half of what it is today,” she noted, adding that as the category has evolved, consumers are increasingly turning to service subscriptions on top of the cost of the wearables themselves.
One third of wearable owners now have such subscriptions, Hanich said. These are led by cellular plans, but “fitness and lifestyle subscriptions, premium health insights, and health coaching services are in demand and growing,” she explained.
The wearables market is led by smart watches, “owned and used by roughly a third of U.S. internet households,” Hanich reported, followed by smart scales, and then connected exercise equipment.
Moving up, though, are smart rings and hybrid watches (which look like dumb analog watches despite being smart). Indeed, she said that 12% of households are likely to purchase a smart ring in the next six months, a figure just about equal to those looking to purchase both hybrid watches and GPS sports watches. Smart watches and fitness trackers still lead in consumer want lists, however.
Hanich pointed out that smart rings and hybrid watches have the advantage of being screenless devices.
From the article, "Ring This Up: Smart Wearables Hitting Mainstream Status" by Les Luchter
Parks Associates revealed that 27% of U.S. car owners would connected cars to communicate with the Internet-connected devices in their home, such as smart garage door openers and door sensors. Park...
Voice’s resurgence seems counter-intuitive. The technology first boomed in the 1990s with voice prompters in customer call centers – not always a satisfying experience as the prompters many times rout...
Smart-home technology is building quickly to a multi-billion-dollar business in Western Europe, say market researchers at Parks Associates, and the Malvern-based "Internet of Things" platform develope...
Herscovici grins as he throws out that shock line, "but we certainly understand the frustration people feel when other product-support operators pass the buck, claim, 'It's not our problem.' The buck...
