Today let’s look at the battle between wearable tech that is designed for a specific set of tasks/applications and more general purpose devices. Health and fitness will be key market makers for these devices.

If you think of a fitness wrist band as the first category and a smart watch as the second, you’ve got the drift. Likewise if you imagine pricing in the hundred of dollars (or less) versus the hundreds of dollars. You might even consider available now versus available in 2015 and later.

The first group are primarily standalone (with upload and download capabilities) while the second are typically tethered to some other wireless device.

These are not perfect categories, but taken together you can drop most products into one group or the other.

You might also call them winners (cheap, limited purpose) and losers (expensive masters of the universe). If won’t always be that way, but in the near term it’s how I expect the market to shape up.

Market expectations

The exception to this will be whatever Apple does, which will predictably tether to an iPhone for most of its functionality, be priced in the $400 range (though I hope less) and drive the high-end of the market.

The limited function devices are typically fairly accurate calorie usage counters, pedometers of varying accuracy and sleep measurement devices that sound like voodoo more than science, at least to me.

These wristbands are reasonably inexpensive, simple-ish to use, meet very specific customer needs and often come with a friendly user group (WeightWatchers, fellow gym members, family, friends, etc.) They are also excellent motivators, which is what people on diets and fitness programs often need the most.

A late-model iPhone and some Android models with one or more external sensors can also provide this functionality. Sometimes, however, the add-ons can cost more than a standalone wristband device. The wristband also will not eat your phone’s battery. Using a phone as an all-day health/fitness monitor might require purchase of a $50-$120 add-on battery case to keep the phone running.

Standalone wristbands and their related form factors are available now, relatively inexpensive and likely to continue to cost less. They also appear to women as a primary customer, something smart watches won’t be able to say for a very long time.

The key to the sales growth wristbands will be added features, improved accuracy, easy downloading to external applications and better pricing. Any three of the four is a win.

Disadvantages to consider

With this as the competition, at least in the health and fitness segment, smart watches arrive at a disadvantage.

• They are expensive, compared to the wristbands.
• They are clunky size-wise, compared to anything, including the humans wearing them.
• The devices I’ve seen fairly scream “for guys only!”
• Jack-of-all-trades may mean masters of none. I am thinking here about how information is presented and even if it needs to be presented in real time. You may not need to know calories burned or steps walked in real time. Heart rate, however, is a right-now number, at least for me. How well can a watch display this and other information? Especially to someone with sweat in their eyes and a need for reading glasses.
• Simply repeating or extending smartphone functions may not be enough to sell a $300 watch, especially if it’s just a display and set of function keys. I am sure some people will purchase these, but I don’t think they will find the same appeal or nearly the value as smart phones themselves. Yet they may cost almost the same!

I am expecting it to take time for smart watches to achieve really acceptable form factors for mass consumption. And acceptance by size and fashion-conscious women.

I think health and fitness will be the killer app for these devices, but those may also take time, especially if special hardware capabilities are required.

A smart watch that monitors blood glucose or predicts migraines, seizures or other conditions would be a huge win. It may also require more processing oomph than a wristband can muster.

Devices that follow heart rate and rhythm will be a huge win, especially the one that predicts heart attacks, summons help, and screams “CPR needed here!” when necessary.

Who wins?

Right now, I am very bullish for the wristband-based health and fitness smart devices. I am not expecting the first generation smart watches to set the world afire and they are likely find their price a significant barrier to mass adoption.

I am not sure how long it will take for watches find acceptance or what applications and features will make smart watches irresistible to mere mortals, but it feels a second or third-generation development.

photo credit: Janitors via photopin cc