We recently revealed that the sales of fitness technology – encompassing wearables, fitness bands and smart-watches are set to explode moving into 2016. This will be boosted by Christmas sales, which amount for over 1/3rd of all sales of these gadgets, yet so many of us have so many questions about these devices.
Below, we have answered the 6 most common questions that we get emailed, tweeted and Facebook’d about below. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below, as a number of these answers are subjective. Do you think fitness gadgets are a fad? Would you buy a smart watch without owning a smartphone? If so, which one? We also look at wether you’d trust a heart rate measuring wearable verses a heart rate monitor for run tracking, the accuracy of these different devices in doing so and ultimately we seek to answer whether such smart-tech is for geeks or wider fitness folks.
8Is Wearable Tech a fad or a future trend?
A year ago this was a viable question. The whole fitness technology space was dominated by smaller companies, many of whom the layman had never heard of. Their products were symbiotic of their nascent stage of development – promising but not without a range of issues. Today the answer is clearer – Fitness tech is no longer a fad, as we see the stampede of well-established top-tier manufacturers (like Asus and HTC) rushing to join the smaller tech start-ups (Jawbone, Fitbit etc) alike to compete for their mark on this new now established trend.
Wearables like Fitbit’s – whose brand equity has risen 3x since Xmas 2014 – are now seen as chic and cool, every bit as much a fashion accessory as a measurable device. As we enter 2016, fitness gadgets and wearables are here to stay.