The impressive release of the Apple Watch on Tuesday has really typified the rise of investment in smart-wearables. As James McQuivey, an Analyst at Forrester has suggested, Apple has finally managed to bridge the gap between personal wearables and smart technology. This is suggestive of a more integrated future between our smart devices, allowing information to be exchanged freely.
In a market that already contains the Moto 360 and the Samsung Galaxy Gear, Apple joins a sector that will only become more congested with the planned future investments from other companies such as Microsoft and Google. This investment is clearly worrying traditional watch companies, as Swatch has announced their contribution to this sector with the Swatch Touch as their next big project.
A press release produced by James Moar at Juniper Research has concluded that consumers would be less interested in smart-wearables (such as a watch or glasses) that have the same functionality as smart phones. However, as we can see with the large-scale investment planned by companies such as Acer, Google, Microsoft, Blackberry and Sony (to name a few); the mass market of vendors sees things differently, and it is hard to disagree. The watch market is one that has little or no innovation since the development of the quartz watches in the 1980s; this would indicate that it is the prime market to invest in. This is backed up by further research from Juniper, projecting the global revenue in smart-wearables to treble by 2016.
Clearly then, there is a degree of uncertainty among critics over the smart-wearables market, but in line with the vision of Steve Jobs; that Apple and other vendors should lead consumers in the smart utilities market.
