Author: JT

Wearable technology promotions continue by smartphone makers

| October 9, 2014

Demand continues to rise for wearables and it appears to be reaching every corner of the world.

The wearable technology fad has not only been making its way through developed markets, but it is also spreading through developing nations, as well, such as in the largest economy of Africa, Nigeria.

Phone manufacturers in that company are currently pushing a range of different wearables to boost their revenues.

These companies are focusing on their promotions of items that range from smartwatches to smart glasses as well as fitness bands and other electronic accessories. The hope is to increase revenues as well as to take hold of a larger market share. Followers of the market feel that demand is rising as smartphone penetration reaches an uppermost point and as the integration of wearable technology gadgets with those mobile devices boosts their functionality.

The enhanced experience has allowed the demand for wearable technology to experience a considerable growth.

Wearable Technology - NigeriaFigures from Technology Distributors (TD) show that more than 10 million smart devices that come to a value of more than $1 billion were sold in Nigeria last year, alone. That said, market followers have feel that the upcoming wave of devices to be sold within the mobile industry is likely to be within the wearables category.

Research firm Deliotte forecasted that fitness bands, smartwatches, and smart glasses would break the $3 billion mark this year, after having sold approximately 10 million units. Some of the giants within this industry, such as Samsung, Google, Sony, Huawei, and Nokia – the top sellers in Nigeria – have already started to reap the benefits of this considerable potential in revenue. Many of these companies have been sending an increasing number of wearable tech devices into Nigeria.

However, they are not alone. Smaller boutique manufacturers have also been hoping to carve out their own little slices of the pie as they step into this space and aim to obtain a healthy portion of the market share, bringing in greater revenues.

The wearable technology category of mobile as a whole has the potential to bring about considerable changes to the global tech industry. It will be an important sector to watch in terms of trends and direction over coming months and years.

Wearable technology could soon be in the form of a tattoo

| October 7, 2014

NewDealDesign, the creator of the popular Fitbit fitness tracker, has now taken on a new wearables challenge.

According to recent tech news, NewDealDesign, which is the company behind the Fitbit wearable technology that is worn in order to track steps and calculate burned calories during workouts, among other things, is now taking on a whole new challenge.

This leap forward in wearables has been called Project Underskin and it is looking at devices from a whole new angle.

This move by NewDealDesign (NDD) is the result of having accepted a challenge from Co.Design, an online design website, that asked the company to look at what wearable technology would be when it goes “beyond the wrist.” In order to address this challenge, NDD took it upon itself to create Project Underskin, which is a type of “smart digital tattoo” that could be implanted into the hand of the wearer.

This would create a kind of built-in wearable technology for health and fitness tracking and a great deal more.

The goal of Project Underskin is to use a tattoo that functions like wearables that would provide health and fitness tracking, unlocking doors through enabled NFC tech, and even exchanging information with other people simply by shaking their hands. All of this would be done through touch because of the implant within the hand of the person with this “tattoo”.wearable technology - tattoo

NDD feels that this highly futuristic sounding wearable technology could be as close as five years away.

What is possibly even more interesting than what the tattoo wearables could actually do is that NDD has stated that based on the current pace and level of electronics research, this could become a reality in as short a time as half a decade. They also said that the flexible display of this type of a mobile device would be the most difficult challenge to try to overcome.

The components that one would expect to be the toughest – such as the ability to remain charged through the human body itself, the requisite communicators and sensors, and the actual implantation – would all be notably easier to put into place than the wearable technology display and its requirement for very high flexibility.