Waiting to die or waiting to die? A brief discussion on the four technical skills that wearable products need to cultivate in 2017

Since the second half of 2016, the wearable market seems to have received bad news. According to eMarketer's estimates, the number of wearable users in the United States increased by 24.7% in 2016, which is significantly smaller than the previous forecast of 60%. IDC data shows that the global wearable market grew by only 3.1% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2016. Taiwan TrendForce's analysis believes that the wearable market grew by 19.1% in 2016, but the growth rate will drop to 12.5% ​​in 2017. Gartner's survey shows that the idle rate of users' smart watches is 29%, and the idle rate of fitness trackers (smart bracelets) is about 30%. The user stickiness of wearable products is not optimistic.

The macro data is not satisfactory, and the wearable market is also in trouble from the micro perspective of enterprise performance. From Jawbone's announcement of withdrawal from the smart bracelet market in the middle of the year, to the acquisition of Pebble, the originator of smart watches, to the news that the sports camera "unicorn" GoPro's third-quarter revenue fell by 40% and the company laid off employees; according to IDC statistics, Apple's Apple Watch sales in the third quarter also fell sharply by 71% year-on-year... All these signs make people worry about the wearable market and the "players" in 2017.

Table 1, IDC global wearable device market tracking data

However, objectively speaking, consolidation of the wearable market is inevitable. From the rise of the wearable product concept to today, it can only be regarded as completing the first round of "testing the waters". In order to reach the real explosion point, it is necessary to continuously accumulate energy in technology reserves.

It can be said that most of the technologies currently used in wearable products are "borrowed" from previous portable products. Many technologies with real wearable characteristics are still "on the way" and cannot be commercialized on a large scale. This has led to the lack of individuality and differentiation in today's wearable products. The ultimate prosperity of wearable products requires at least the further maturity of the following four aspects of technology.

Sensing, especially biosensing. Today's users should have begun to get tired of the current wearable products on the market, such as step counting, heart rate, and sleep monitoring. There is an urgent need for new sensor technologies to "enhance" wearable products so that they can truly integrate with users' daily lives. For example, some scholars are currently studying the technology of extracting user biochemical indicators such as pH, lactate, chloride, and glucose levels through sweat analysis, and strive to keep the price of such sensor products within US$1.5. Although the current research is still in the laboratory stage, the emergence of similar sensor technologies will undoubtedly give wearable products more "real" value.

Energy harvesting. The portability and battery life of wearable products are an eternal contradiction. Today's developers have pushed the currently available battery and power management technologies to their limits, but the battery life of wearable products is still far from meeting user expectations. Energy harvesting is a technology that people have high hopes for. Whether it is used as the main power source or backup power source for wearable products, it is theoretically an effective way to improve the battery life of the device. Solutions to obtain energy through user movement or body temperature have also been explored, but it will take some time for real commercial use.

Low-power wireless interconnection. In today's wearable products, BLE has almost become the standard for wireless communication due to its excellent low-power characteristics. However, the positioning of BLE local area network communication determines its limited transmission distance, and also makes the role of wearable products gradually solidified as smartphone "peripherals", making it difficult to play a greater role. Therefore, some people are trying to graft the emerging LPWAN low-power wide-area wireless communication technology (such as NB-IoT) into wearable devices. Based on its large capacity, wide coverage, low power consumption, low cost, and high stability, the role of wearable devices is made more "independent" and penetrated into more application scenarios.

Figure 2: VR shoes with haptic feedback technology launched by Gerevo at CES 2017

Wearable human-computer interaction. Think carefully about today's smart watches. Their graphical human-computer interaction interface is undoubtedly inherited from smartphones, but such an interface may not be suitable for wearable scenarios. Therefore, designing a human-computer interaction method that meets the characteristics of wearable products is a necessary condition for winning the hearts of users. At present, natural human-computer interaction, such as voice and gesture recognition, is a key development direction of wearable human-computer interaction. Turning wearable devices into a portal for users to connect to cloud services such as AI is definitely a good idea that can inspire developers. Haptics technology is also a hot topic worthy of attention. It can make wearable devices give us a more realistic experience. For example, Gerevo launched a VR shoe called Taclim at CES 2017. As a gaming peripheral, it can simulate the feeling of being on different grounds (such as beaches and grass) through tactile feedback technology, enhancing the experience of gamers. In the future, in wearable devices that fit the body most closely, the application of tactile experience will undoubtedly have great imagination space. Of course, we should not forget the most "primitive" physical human-computer interaction method. For example, for the elderly or other special user groups, a simple button will be easier to use and more friendly than a cool graphical interface. There is a lot to be done in terms of how to comprehensively utilize these human-computer interaction technologies to make wearable devices more user-friendly.

For the wearable market, 2017 is destined to be a year of hesitation. In such an environment, "waiting to die" is a kind of helplessness, and "waiting to death" is a kind of persistence. At this time, practicing the above-mentioned technical skills will give you a chance to wait for the real "spring flowers blooming".