The current popularity of consumer-focused connected health devices, whether fitness-tracking wristbands, smart bathroom scales or simply dedicated apps that run on an existing smartphone, is poised to make more consumers proactive about their well-being but is also set to play a huge role in the future of healthcare.
Research by Parks Associates suggests that 30per cent of US broadband homes already own some form of connected health device and that by 2016, over 32 million US consumers will be actively tracking their personal health and fitness -- either online or via a mobile device of some description.
At the same time, the use of wearable devices in the health and medical field, for monitoring vital signs such as insulin levels and blood pressure, is also growing and, according to Harry Wang, Parks Associates director of health and mobile product research, a converge is coming. Writing in the May edition of the research firm's Digital Health News, he states: "the design trends for wearables in the medical field follow what is happening in the fitness area -- they are becoming more discreet, with more user-centric designs and highly integrated functions."
From the article "Today's wearables shaping tomorrow's healthcare."
Roku faces massive, deep-pocketed competitors — but so far the 700-employee company has more than held its own in the streaming-media device market. In the first quarter of 2017, Roku had 37% share of...
The irony is that YouTube TV may well get the growth it’s seeking sooner than anybody expects. Late last year a Parks Associates survey determined that the nascent YouTube Red was consumers’ seventh-f...
Google’s Chromecast streaming-TV device didn’t lose ground, but given that it’s only utilized as a streaming TV device by 17% of streaming video viewers — despite launching in 2013 with considerably l...
According to U.S. market research published by Parks Associates last summer, Amazon media player products narrowly out-shipped Apple TV (for a 22 vs 20 percent share of the market) in 2015, but that a...