Author: Lucy

Health tracking wearable technology was important to more than half of survey respondents.

Based on the findings of a new report by ON World, 60% of the 1,000 consumers surveyed are likely to adopt wearables that have health and fitness tracking capabilities, revealing that these are among the top selling features of this tech.

ON World predicts that more than 260 million wearable devices will have shipped by 2018.

In addition to finding out what appeals to potential adopters of wearable tech, the report evaluated wireless personal area devices shipments, which includes mobile gadgets such as smart jewelry, smartwatches, proximity monitors, and child and pet trackers. The company forecasts that 265 million of these devices will be shipped in 2018.

Mareca Hatler, a research director at ON World, stated that “Mobile sensing is quickly becoming a mass market meme.” Hatler added that “Wearables are the largest and fastest growing segment with the most growth coming from general purpose smart devices that integrate multiple sensors as well as multiple communications capabilities.”

The firm predicts that while WiFi will grow the fastest, Bluetooth Smart will be the communication protocol that will be the most extensively utilized for wearables within the next five years.

Smartwatches were found to be the most popular wearables.

42% of survey respondents showed interest in becoming likely adopters of smartwatches. In addition, after evaluating product reviews, ON World learned that there are eight times more smartwatches on the market now compared to two years previous, and that there are four times as many other wearable devices. According to data found in a study the firm released in May, ON World predicted that 19% of Americans will own a wearable device by 2015.

The company was also curious to learn how much consumers would be willing to spend on a smartwatch. They discovered that 23% said they would pay $149 or higher if the watch had fitness and health features, such as activity, heart rate, and blood pressure tracking.

Data that was previously released from the same survey indicates that 49% of consumers would be willing to drop $99 or more for wearables with these features, but only 8% of respondents said they would pay more than $299. This statistic might make one wonder how popular Apple’s rumored smartwatch will be considering the device is rumored to cost $400.

The results of a survey conducted by Sage North America showed this is the case despite perceived value.

Sage North America has revealed the results of its most recent Sage SMB Survey on Mobile Devices, which included findings on a number of different industries and sectors that see potential value in mobile technology, but that do not set an annual budget to meet those needs.

Among the sectors included in this survey were food and beverage, manufacturing and distribution, and construction.

Those specific industry sectors felt that mobile technology could be overwhelmingly positive in terms of the impact that it has on business, but the vast majority of companies in these areas only purchase solutions in this category as the need arises, instead of setting an annual budget for this tech. According to the Sage North America executive vice president and general manager of mid-market solutions, Joe Langner, “With more than 40 percent reporting that they have a BYOD (bring your own device) policy in place, employers in all three industries may not see the need to budget for mobile since BYOD helps ensure that expenses are relatively small.”

At the same time the survey results still suggested that it is worthwhile for companies to plan for mobile technology.

Langner stated that it is evident that businesses are seeing the gains in productivity, which indicates that regardless of whether the tech is used as a part of an official BYOD (bring your own device) policy or for a specific item, this type of planning is worthwhile.

In manufacturing and distribution, the survey showed that 74 percent of companies are not creating a budget for these devices or mobile apps. That said 51 percent of those companies do actually use mobile devices as they have perceived their benefits. Among those, 76 percent have at least one employee that uses a laptop, 74 percent has at least one employee that uses a smartphone, and 49 percent have at least one employee that uses a tablet.

In construction, 77 percent of companies said that smartphones provided a positive impact on the productivity of their organization, though under 14 percent had a budget for the hardware or software.

Food and beverage saw the most positive impact of mobile technology in their customer service (73 percent). Among the respondents, one pointed out that these devices help to “answer questions even when we are not in the office.”