Going NO wear! Barriers to wearable technology.

Going NO wear! Understanding the barriers to the acceptance and growth of wearable technology.

Several factors have held back SmartWatches and other wearables: practical design/utility constraints, cost, security and public acceptance. Many have a short battery life, which limits their appeal, most can only perform advanced functions when linked to a mobile phone (as the case for Apple's iWatch).  In general, consumers often have little interest in carrying around another device that cannot serve as a full substitute for what they already have and which is as expensive as a mobile phone.

With very few exceptions, wearables currently lack the elegant design and ease of use that consumers expect of personal items such as articles of clothing or expensive watches. Even the fashion models who were hired to demonstrate  Google Glass at its launch event struggled to make it look stylish. 

Most vendors are still coming to grips with the technical/engineering challenges and constraints presented by wearables, and are only starting to consider the “cultural engineering” that needs to happen for wearables to become accepted by consumers,  Acknowledge design leader Apple has hired fashion-conscious executives from luxury brands like Burberry and Yves Saint Laurent to make its watch more attractive, but it is not yet obvious that it has cracked the code outside of a core price-insensitive "technophile" audience.

One of the biggest challenges facing wearables is the absence to date of a “killer application. Smart Watches do not yet provide much more than smart mobile phones currently do, and many models offer far less, or require to be (wirelessly) tethered to a mobile phone.   Moving beyond the traditional capabilities of a mobile phone, will depend on getting software and hardware developers to build applications and supporting (iOT) infrastrucutre that will optimise the potential for wearable computing. However, most developers are focused on the smartphone market, which already has hundreds of millions of users, versus just a few million users for smartwatches.

Many developers will also wait and see which operating system becomes dominant before investing time, effort and money in wearables. Apple, Google, Samsung , Intel and Microsoft are all going head-to-head to develop the system that will unite different areas of people’s lives, from their watches and phones to cars and home appliances.

Some analysts believe that the killer application for "wearables’ will be that they provide the user with a “persistent” digital identity.  For example,the Disney World theme park in Orlando. Disney invested around $1 Billion to build a system in which people use a wristband (called a MagicBand) to get on rides, pay for food and enter their hotel rooms. The technology is convenient for guests, who have to carry around fewer cards. The bands also allow Disney collect data in real time about the traffic their rides and restaurants are getting, so that they can deploy staff to the right places. Other companies are taking tentative steps in a similar direction. Carmakers such as Hyundai are creating apps to let people unlock and start their cars remotely with their watches and phones.

Consumer applications are not the only key market for wearables. The next growth in wearable technology development may be led by business users and industrial applications. Wearable devices would be useful in the workplace in all sorts of ways.  In factories and warehouses, smart glasses could make it more efficient to locate and handle stock—and to keep an eye on workers’ productivity. Mining and oil firms could use wearables to monitor the safety of employees in hazardous situations. First V1sion is working on "Wearable Broadcast System" - a sports shirt with an embedded camera, which will give fans a "players’ eye view" of the sports action. Virgin Atlantic, Japan Airlines and other carriers have tried using smart glasses and watches to improve their check-in service. Consumers may benefit in the end, but many of the early buyers of wearable devices will be businesses.

Wearable devices hold the potential to transform some industries. Clinical trials could become cheaper and more accurate if pharmaceutical companies give wearable monitors to the patients taking part. Hospitals and doctors’ surgeries could use such monitors to reduce the need for home visits. Insurance firms could enter a new age in which they reduce risk as well as provide cover for it. One American health insurer is already handing out health-monitoring bands to customers, promising lower premiums for those who exercise more.  Banks could reward customers who use the identity-verifying features of wearables, to cut the risk of card fraud.

Wearable devices are highly personal, and because of this users are exposed to real security risks. As consumers capture and store more of their personal activities and more of their health and medical data electronically, the chance that they could be compromised increases. Wearable technology provides a new avenue of attack for cyber-criminals, and currently there is no easy way to revoke personal information should a wearable device be lost or stolen.

Broader market acceptance of wearable technology will only come as the (predominantly technology based) barriers to acceptance are reduced or eliminated, and the overall benefits to the consumer become more tangible and relevant to their daily lives.  Adoption is therefore likely to follow a growth curve marked by addressing key barriers and instantiating consumer benefits (the quintessential definition of a Customer Value Proposition).  This growth curve will not be the same for all customer and market segments.