A survey done by the connectivity company Citrix says that Americans think wearables will be as common as smartphones in about six years, even if they don’t really know what they’ll be using it for.
The company surveyed 1,000 Americans over the age of 18 earlier this month; they say the results are adjusted to be valid for the entire population.
Of those surveyed, there was a 60/40 split over whether wearables will be used primarily for fun or for work, but nearly three-quarters — 73 percent — said however they’ll us it, it should be blended into everyday clothing. Only 27 percent said the tech should be visible or obvious. Interestingly, that figure was notably higher (39 percent) among 18-to-39-year-olds.
That younger cohort was also more likely to have plans to buy some kind of wearable tech: 46 percent of Millennials as opposed to 32 percent of the general population. Only 7 percent of Americans say they’ve already bought a wearable tech device; 18 percent plan to in the coming year, and 14 percent sometime after that. 61 percent say they have no such plans.
As for what sort of wearable tech people are “excited” about, 30 percent of the surveyed adults said watches, 22 percent said clothing, and 19 percent said glasses. Shoes and jewelry tied at 9 percent.
Notwithstanding that, 34 percent of respondents said the fictional wearable tech thing they’d like most to own is a Star Trek Wrist Communicator, which is strange because wrist communicators were used only in the first two movies and not at all in any of the TV series. Mostly, of course, Starfleet used a hand-held device or the badge communicator. It’s not clear whether this was a choice offered by the survey-takers or one freely given. We suspect the former, since the other choices were James Bond’s X-ray glasses (at 28 percent, seen only in 1999’s The World Is Not Enough), Tony Stark’s exo-suit (21 percent), Maxwell Smart’s shoe phone (10 percent) or the Gadget Hat from Inspector Gadget (7 percent).
Citrix, in case you don’t know, is a prominent cloud connectivity company. It’s likely that you’re most familiar with their products GoToMeeting and GoToMyPC, although they also have many other remote connectivity products for various vertical markets.