The wearables market continues to increase as technology improves
“You're going to be looking at some of these big names in companies that are going to penetrate into the market. They already are developing devices that target customers that are supposed to be using wearable devices. But now they're going to be saying this is a certain brand that does something important for you and also can help people with hearing conditions to improve how they hear. So all of that is going to increase the utilization of wearables and the penetration of them,” says Alfredo J. Perez, an associate professor teaching computer science and engineering at the University of Nebraska.
Gartner is an information technology research and consultancy company. According to research by Gartner, in 2020 the market for wearable devices was $80 billion. That market has tripled since 2014, and is expected to reach $138 billion by 2025. The spending on ear-worn devices rose significantly in 2020. The growth is largely attributed to remote workers upgrading their headphones for video calls and consumers purchasing headphones to use with smart devices.
According to Gartner, ear-worn devices amounted to $44 million in sales in 2020, outpacing smartwatches, which amounted to $31 million in sales..
A 2021 research analysis report by Gartner, identifies different types of wearable technology:
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Smartwatches are devices which resemble a traditional watch but mirror a smartphone. That includes calls, messages, alerts and voice commands. Smartwatches must have WiFi or cellular connectivity.
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Head-mounted displays are small devices that are worn or mounted on or near the head so the displays can be seen by the individuals wearing them.
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Smart clothing monitors the wearer’s physical condition. The clothing provides biometric data such as heart rate, body temperature, physical movement and more. The data from the clothing is transmitted to a smartphone.
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Ear-worn devices are wireless headsets that include multiple sensors. The sensors include an accelerometer, touch sensor and other technologies that can allow evaluation of a user’s current state and can enable two-way communications involving natural language processing and AI functions. Those can include virtual personal assistants or virtual training coaches.
By Madison Kopp
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Wristbands are devices that have a band or bracelet design. Those devices either have displays or not. The wristbands have two-way wireless connectivity and are used to collect data about the wearer’s physical activity biometrics, surrounding environment or objects nearby. Wristband devices may also be used for other purposes including fitness tracking, safety such as Find my iPhone, mobile payment and maintaining wellness.
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Sport watches collect, navigate and wirelessly transmit information about the wearer when they are participating in sports. The watches display performance parameters such as activity, location and heart rate.
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Smart patches are noninvasive health monitoring sensors that can stick to the skin and can be used to measure vitals and data such as temperature, heart rate and blood sugar more effectively than other wearable technologies.
“Wearable technologies will continue to be sold and more technology will be incorporated into them. This is because of the processing power and over technology aspects about how technology evolves, they will continue to be to be incorporated, especially in developed technology. In developed countries. Countries like for example, Japan, and some countries in Europe like Germany, Italy, are suffering from a declining population. More people are getting older which means that because there is no renovation in the demographics, more people are going to be dependent upon these wearable technologies to be able to track the health estate to assist them with certain things related to safety and so on.” says Jean Cox-Kearns, the Chief Sustainability Officer for the Global Electronics Council.
A study in Sensors Journal found in 2019 smartwatches and wristbands dominated the wearables market, with a combined market share of 51%. As of 2021, the leading wearables are ear-worn with a market share of 48%. Following were smartwatches and wristbands with a share of 37%.
The study mentioned that wearable sensing technologies continue to improve rapidly with advances in sensors, communication technologies and artificial intelligence in the past decade.
A wearable sensing device consists of sensors which may be implanted, worn and carried around. Depending on characteristics and sensing goals of a wearable device, it may be connected to external systems using the Internet or cellular networks. As of 2021, there are around 266 companies producing at least 420 different wearable sensing devices.
“There is an issue with any kind of new technology with respect to human computer interaction, in the sense that sometimes technology is so new that it hasn't been publicly or generalized to the core, like there hasn't been a lot of research on how people will interact with these devices. So I think that the power of human computer interaction is important,” says Chad Lane, who is a psychology professor at the University of Illinois.
According to the study Recent Advances in Wearable Sensing Technologies, by 2025, the wearable payments services market is expected to be larger than the combined fitness/medical wearables services market by $10 billion.
Consumer wearable systems were researched with cellphones during the mid 2000s. The widespread popularity of cellular communication, the internet and the embedding of sensors in cellphones have paved the way to the development of sensing applications.
The use of wearables technology in health care
A 2020 study Patterns of Use and Key Predictors for the Use of Wearable Health Care Devices used a national survey from the National Cancer Institute’s Health Information National Trends. The data was collected from January to April 2019 and received 4,551 respondents. The study examined usage patterns of wearable healthcare devices and personal demographics, individual health, and the knowledge of using technology. The study looked into the use of wearables, frequency of use, and willingness to share health data.
According to the study of the 4,551 respondents, about 30% of U.S. adults use wearable health care devices and 47% use the devices every day. White women between 18 and 50 years old were most likely to use wearable health devices. Adults over the age of 50 were less likely to use wearables compared to those between 18 and 34 years old.
U.S. adults who reported feeling healthier were overweight, enjoyed exercising and reported high levels of technology knowledge were more likely to use wearables for tracking or monitoring their health.
Wearable health care devices are equipment with embedded sensors to collect a variety of physiological health information. Those healthcare devices range from fitness trackers to collect data on physical activities such as the number of steps taken, calories burned, sleep duration and heart rate to more sophisticated devices that can collect information about blood pressure, glucose levels and oxygen levels.
The collected data from those devices can be transferred to smartphones or computers to be stored and analyzed to provide appropriate health care treatment.
Although there are benefits to wearable devices, there are also challenges. The ability for devices to track, store and transmit patient health information raises questions about data security and privacy. Design, accuracy and reliability of wearables is also a major concern. These questions are mostly brought up by elderly people who don’t understand technology unlike those born in generations with technology.
Alfredo J. Perez explained in an interview that, “Wearable technology can be used for the elderly. There are many aspects of them you can use in transportation. For example, I mentioned to you that people usually don't think about a cell phone as a wearable but it's actually a wearable, and we can use them right now to request one of these ride sharing services like Uber and it helps elderly people to move around. This is relatively new, so many elderly may not trust in these types of services.”
Wearable health care devices offer several potential benefits to users. The devices offer an easy way to monitor, store, and share health. They can facilitate remote patient monitoring and provide faster data to physicians, which can result in improved health. Wearables provide feedback to users to make appropriate changes in their daily routines. Those devices can be useful for patients with chronic conditions, patients with cardiovascular risks and the elderly population.