We've long believed that the most exciting thing about wearables isn't the Quantified Self movement as much as it is how wearables can change the relationship between people and entities. (It's much the same as early personal computers: standalone computer were much less interesting than computers connected to the Internet.) Salesforce -- the world's top CRM platform -- … [Read more...]
Who’s Making How Much Money in the Wearable Band Market
We've been thinking a lot about the recent Canalys report about market share in the wearables business, and we've been trying to tease some actual revenue numbers based in the results they published. This is valuable because these companies are either private and don't publish revenues, or are public and don't break this market down in their financials. Canalys said that … [Read more...]
Fitbit Leads the Wearables World: Canalys
Anyone can project billions of dollars in the future, but counting actual shipping products is hard. The consulting firm Canalys reports that Fitbit shipped nearly half of all wearable bands in the world in the first quarter of 2014. Overall, Canalys reported, 2.7 million wearable bands shipped worldwide last quarter, and Fitbit's strength was despite the skin rash-related … [Read more...]
Runkeeper CEO Says Fitness Trackers Are Dead; We’re Not So Sure
Business Insider is carrying a very thoughtful and provocative article by Runkeeper CEO Jason Jacobs. Jacobs says that standalone fitness trackers like the Nike FuelBand, the Fitbit Force, or the Misfit Shine, are fads -- and that the future belongs to smartphones and software. The argument -- that consumers consistently bias toward simplicity and not complexity -- is … [Read more...]
Walgreens’s Mobile App Connects to Wearables, Rewards Healthy Behavior
People who use Walgreens's iPhone and Android apps have long been able to renew their prescriptions with the app, and the company opened up its API to third parties last year. We're now seeing that the app connects to a wide range of wearable devices -- and the company is paying customers for healthy behaviors. The Walgreens Balance Rewards app will pull data from devices … [Read more...]
FiveThirtyEight Takes On Fitness Trackers
Some months ago, we reported that different brands of fitness trackers appear to count steps in fundamentally different ways from each other -- and that called their accuracy into question. Yesterday, Nate Silver's ESPN-owned data journalism site FiveThirtyEight.com launched, and there was a wonderful piece about just that topic. Reporter Carl Bialik counted his own steps … [Read more...]
Credible Details Emerge on Healthbook, Apple’s Coming Fitness Tracking Software
We tend to be skeptics about pre-release speculation and leaks, but 9to5 Mac appears to have gotten the goods on Healthbook, Apple's entry into the fitness tracking (and, by extension, wearables) business. The article includes extensive clear screenshots which show the direction of the iOS software and, presumably, its companion hardware. Healthbook, which looks a great deal … [Read more...]
Fitbit Force: Wearable Product of the Year — Part 1
The Fitbit Force is the fitness tracker that the earlier Flex should have been: more solid, with an actual (hi-res) screen and a switch that allows for user input. But what puts the Force ahead of its competition (particularly the Nike Fuelband) is its companion software. Where most mass-market wristwear is content to simply track movement, Fitbit's software tries to get at … [Read more...]
Lots of Talk and Action in NYC Wearables; Event Reports from Eyebeam and HUGE
WTI was out a lot last week, seeing a bunch of new wearable products here in New York City and listening to some interesting ideas. Not much trend or narrative emerged -- the wearbles business isn't quite mature enough to cohere that way -- but some patterns may be starting to peek out. Eyebeam, a gallery in the Chelsea section of New York, has an ongoing research initiative … [Read more...]
Comparative Review of Fuelband vs Flex: Can You Trust The Data?
I've been wearing a Nike Fuelband for the last year or so, since it first became commercially available. I added a Fitbit Flex three months ago, when it too first hit the market. They differ considerably -- not just in design and intent, but in measuring what is supposedly the same thing. The short version: over the course of the last three months, the Flex counted an … [Read more...]