It’s no secret that this was the year of the wearables and “Internet of Things” at CES. From new smartwatches, to baby monitoring teddy bears, app-controlled hearing aids and smart collars for Fido; it seems that everyone’s trying to take a bite out of the connected cookie. But several questions remain unanswered: When will these products be brought to market? Where can we buy them? Do they work with my iPhone or Android device?
The simple answers are: not soon enough; not enough places; and possibly.
Selling smartwatches and other devices isn’t a problem. They’ll move fast. In fact, sales are expected to grow 61% this year. The problem is getting people to keep using them. The chances are that consumers will use their device for a short period of time, but quickly become frustrated by battery life, speed of connectivity and signal loss. Be it a Wi-Fi-, Bluetooth-, LTE- or 4G-connected device, every manufacturer has to prove long-term performance value if they want continued usage and happy customers.
When it comes to wearables and IoT, it seems that many consumers might not even know the right questions to ask. They shouldn’t just be about availability, price or compatibility; rather the customer should inquire about performance, value and usability.
Why do people stop using wearables?
There are several factors that determine the success of a product. Functionality is usually the biggest culprit. Often the applications are limited in scope and, while the design may be great, the long-term usability design often doesn’t keep up with changing needs of customers. Additionally, if it’s an extension of your smartphone, app developers are constantly making the secondary device obsolete by making your smartphone even smarter, like Samsung’s S Health. So, if you lose your wearable, it’s not a big problem after all.
The next set of problems stems from technical errors in actual manufacturing and design of the device. Usually this includes complaints about battery life, speed of connecting to other devices or the Internet and quickness of data transfer – all of which can be attributed to poor antenna performance. With a push for better displays, more chips (accelerometers, GPS, etc.) and better batteries, the antenna is often given short shrift. If the antenna shrinks, so will connectivity – meaning devices have to spend more time searching for a signal, have slower connections, or suffer complete connection loss. This drains batteries, which means more time charging and less time wearing it.
Can I replace my phone with a wearable?
Do device manufacturers plan on replacing smartphones with wearables? Probably not, because the current device lets mobile network operators drive more sales of peripherals. So far, we’ve seen wearables work in parallel with smartphones instead of living autonomously. But the phoneless ecosystem is entirely possible with today’s technology, if mobile operators welcome the idea. That leads us to wonder if wearables will be built with the same connectivity specifications as smartphones? It’s hard to assume that such a small-form factor can offer the same level of connectivity and performance. So what sacrifices are consumers willing to make to have standalone devices? We saw one example at CES: A company unveiled a smartwatch that lets the wearer make mobile payments, without a phone. How far this could go remains to be seen – but just think of the possibilities.
Are wearables too mobile to get a decent connection?
Connectivity has a lot to do with functionality. That’s why mobile network operators have invested billions of dollars into their LTE infrastructures, adding more repeaters and picocells and signal amplifiers to improve signal and data speeds. But there is still white space.
If wearables were to really be standalone devices, they need to be multiband designs, i.e. support connectivity to LTE, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or multiple protocols to keep in-sync. That’s why mobile carriers are opening the door to Wi-Fi calling with smartphones to show that their (AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, T-Mobile US) value doesn’t just rest in their mobile network but in continued performance even on local area networks. If that’s the case, they’ll need better antennas, capable of intelligently tuning between the right frequencies and maintaining signal continuity.
CES presented us with a lot of great designs that even make me salivate at replacing my old Casio. But, if I’m going to invest into a wearable that can do more than tell me the time, count my calories or heartbeats, there are still tons of questions.
We have smartphones, when will we get smart wearables?
Lars Johnsson joined Cavendish-Kinetics in January 2014, coming from Broadcom’s Mobile and Wireless group where he was senior director responsible for the product marketing and management of Broadcom’s LTE modem platform, including design wins, product roadmap, lifecycle and customer program management. Prior to Broadcom Johnsson was VP of marketing and business development at Beceem Communications, which he helped grow to a 65% market share and more than $100 million revenue in the WiMAX chipset market in 2010, prior to being acquired by Broadcom. Johnsson joined Beceem five years after co-founding Flarion Technologies, the OFDM mobile broadband pioneer, which he helped spin-off of Lucent Bell Labs in 2000. At Flarion, Johnsson was initially responsible for business development and later product marketing until the acquisition by Qualcomm in 2005. Johnsson holds an MBA in management of technology from Rensselaer Polytechnic, and an MS in chemical engineering from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany.
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