Tag: wearable tech

Wearables could reduce the price tag on employer healthcare

| March 17, 2015

The co-founders of Jiff are working to encourage workers at large companies to live healthier lifestyles.

Co-founders of a startup called Jiff have taken the example from PayPal, Facebook, and Tickle, and have developed a way to incorporate that knowledge into wearables that will encourage employees of companies such as Red Bull, Activision Blizzard, and Qualcomm to take on healthier behaviors and better overall lifestyles.

They have now raised just under $26 million in order to create a disruption to benefits programs from employers.

The strategy is to provide employees with meaningful incentives to encourage them to take on healthier behaviors. This will use a range of different methods and tools, including wearables, in order to improve the overall health of employees and to drive down the costs associated with their health insurance packages. Among the incentives that are being offered is to be able to earn credits that can be applied against deductibles if claims need to be made on their health plans.

Wearables in the form of fitness trackers, smartwatches, and other gadgets help to show who is truly participating.

Wearables - Cut price tagBy using wearable technology, employers don’t need to take a worker’s word for it. They can actually see exactly how much effort an individual employee is putting into the healthy lifestyle strategy so that they can receive their incentive rewards.

According to the CEO of Jiff, Derek Newell, “Our engagement is usually with the head of benefits. … We work with them to determine what behaviors they want to incent or what challenges they want to design into the system.” The incentives for this program are fully customizable, depending on the current health of a given employee. For instance, a worker who is currently managing diabetes would be offered different types of rewards than someone who hasn’t been diagnosed with any chronic conditions at all.

On the side of employers, this wearables based health tracking program helps to promote cost reductions when it comes to providing their employees with healthcare coverage. Moreover, this type of program has also been shown to boost the overall feeling of community and goodwill within a workplace.

Are manufacturers of smartwatches over thinking their products?

| March 13, 2015

Pebble believes that some of the current wearables that are being released have been overcomplicated.

It is starting to become difficult to find a smartphone or electronics manufacturer that has not either released, unveiled, or at least considered the creation of its own smartwatches, but at the same time, these devices have yet to truly take off.

Many in the industry believe that the rollout of the Apple Watch will bring these wearables into the mainstream.

However, one of the most established brands of smartwatches has now stated that it feels that many of the companies that have attempted to create their own gadgets have actually over thought what the devices should be. Primarily, the difference between a standard wristwatch and the upgraded wearable technology is that it offers a range of additional features aside from telling the time and date, and perhaps even adding a stopwatch or alarm clock option. They tend to bring the user notifications for incoming calls and texts and have controls for music playback, for example.

But as the market for smartwatches becomes increasingly crowded, brands are working hard to stand out.

smartwatches OverthinkingThis has caused them to add broad spectrums of new features and options that may or may not be all that appealing to the user. According to Pebble, many of the additional features that are being incorporated into the devices in the name of differentiating them from one another have actually been overcomplicating things. Speaking of the wearable technology devices that have been launched by Samsung and Apple, Monica Isla, a Pebble spokesperson, said that “I think they overthink what people are going to do with them.”

Isla later went on to say that “We don’t lose sight that it’s a watch. I think a lot of people lose the fact that it’s a watch. It’s not a phone. It’s not a gadget. It’s a watch and time is what matters to people.”

Clearly, it is Pebble’s opinion that smartwatches are great to act as wristwatches that also have additional bonus features such as alerts and notifications, but when all is said and done, the more complex tasks can simply be done on a smartphone, where they will be more convenient and efficient, anyway.