Tag: smartwatch

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 mobile device maker from Taiwan could be working on a wearable device based on Android Wear.

Rumors have been flying about HTC and the possible release of a smartwatch based on the Android Wear platform from Google, which could be released as early as this month.

It has been heavily believed, for some time, that the company has been working on wearable technology.

Aside from the fact that it is now rumored that the smartwatch will be released before September is finished, it is also believed that the wearable technology device will be called the HTC CWZ. It is not known exactly when in September the device will actually hit the shelves, nor has it been officially confirmed that these wearables will be out this month, but the source (@upleaks) has been relatively accurate with this type of statement in the past.

The HTC smartwatch will be released in a number of countries and markets around the world.

The technology news reports have suggested that the first to receive this wearable technology will include North America, Korea, Japan, Brazil, and several others. The device, itself, is something that the technology world has known about for most of this year, as Cher Wang, HTC chairperson, made the announcement back in February that the company was working on this gadget and that it would be available to buy in time for this year’s holiday shopping season.

That said, Wang did not say exactly when it would become available, nor did she make any specific mention of the type of features that can be expected from this device. This has caused the rumor mill to continually swirl, as the unveiling of the Taiwanese wearables could occur at virtually any moment.

Technology news headlines of this nature thickened this summer when a smartwatch made a brief appearance in an official HTC video. That said, the company stated that the device that was spotted in the video was not an actual product planned for release. Previous reports have also suggested that the wearable technology device would be sold under the name One Wear and that it would launch late in August or early in September.