Image Source: economist.com
WHEN an earthquake of magnitude 6.0 struck Northern California on August 24th at 3.20am, it not only shook the ground—it also shook people awake. Strikingly, it is possible to identify the tremblor's epicentre by measuring the disrupted sleep suffered by thousands of people in the area who use a bracelet pedometer and sleep-tracking device made by Jawbone (see chart below). The company spotted trends in how long it took people to return to their slumber, and noted that 45% of people within 15 miles of the epicentre were unable to go back to sleep at all.
Image Source: economist.com
The fitness-tracking devices—often called “wearables” or “wearable computing”—emerged on the tech scene a few years ago. They promised to transform the burgeoning field of personal electronics: calculating the number of steps walked, calories burned or hours slept. After all, as computers get smaller and closer to people's bodies, gadgets for self-tracking seemed the next logical step beyond the smartphone. By 2013 they were a $238m market around the world, with products by Fitbit, Nike and Jawbone accounting for 97% of all smartphone-enabled tracker sales. Yet despite the fascinating data that can be collected from them, like patterns of behaviour during an earthquake, the devices still have a long way to go to match the early optimism that surrounds them.
The immediate problem is their limited appeal. They are primarily aimed at fitness fanatics, yet well over half of all Americans do not exercise regularly, and thus have little interest in the product. Fitness trackers also fail to keep the attention of those health-conscious consumers who do go out and buy them. Strikingly, one-third of users discard their devices after six months, according to research by Endeavour Partners, a consultancy. Some industry insiders speculate that the true number may be much higher than that. Wearable fitness-trackers are just not as addictive as smartphones and the like, it seems. The novelty of being able to track your steps, calories or other metrics is appealing at first, but swiftly wears off. Use a fitness tracker regularly, and you get pretty good at guessing the numbers.
Next, it is unclear at what pace the technology will evolve. The computer and smartphone industries advance quickly because there are many players and their products are indispensable. Not so self-tracking wearables. The uncertainty over the commitment of hardware-makers was underscored in April, when Nike fired the majority of the team responsible for its device, called FuelBand, and cancelled a new version of the product scheduled for release later this year. It shelved other similar projects as well, and said it would focus on software and fitness-tracking apps (which run on smartphones) instead.
One measure of a wearable device's success is whether you would turn around for it if you were halfway to work—as you would for a smartphone. Yet market research suggests that consumers are not willing to make an about-face and fetch their fitness trackers. In fact, Sonny Vu of Misfit, a wearable-computing company, expects the market for fitness trackers to contract over the next few years.
Some still hope that more capable wristbands, like “smartwatches”, might be the right interface to collect bodily data that is then sent to the smartphone (or perhaps one day replace the smartphone). Apple is said to have such a device in the works, and has hired people from Nike, presumably to work on it. The difficulty will be persuading consumers to make room for yet another device in their lives.
Self-tracking gadgets will probably only become a mainstream market once they shed their image as computerised jewellery or conversation-starters for fitness freaks and data geeks, and start collecting much more useful information related to health, such as vital signs and a wearer's biochemical changes. The data might be analysed to uncover health trends or to spot diseases before their full-blown symptoms appear. One can even imagine health-insurance companies offering discounts on premiums to people who wear the gadgets, just as car-insurance firms do for drivers whose cars are equipped with wireless devices that track where and when the car is on the road. By that time, the impetus to wear the self-tracking devices will be practical, not simply recreational. But until then, wearing a fitness tracker is a step further than most people are willing to go.
I’m Kevin Foote, originally from Denver, Colorado, and a proud owner of a fitness-tracking device. You see, I like knowing if I have met my target number of calories burned for the day, all in the name of health and fitness. Do you own one? Let’s trade notes here.
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