When I started tracking wearables in social media last year, I chose the fashion-tech angle, shunning gadget-laden biometric fitness wristbands, most of which I considered ugly, trendy trinkets-with no apparent thought to feminine aesthetics and minimal functionality-doomed for the junk drawer. My interest in fashion-tech was largely sparked by the fashion industry's dynamic embrace of and investment in smart garments and accessories, coupled with a growing cadre of leading fashion brand and technology partnerships.
This eve of the next wave of "fashionable wearables," arguably led by the imminent release of Apple Watch, is a good time to start benchmarking the market by assessing leading themes in social media as they evolve in 2015. As the wearables "body part" competition heats up, one thing is certain-consumers want stylish devices. Enhanced functionality is expected by wearers, but fashion is foremost.
To set the stage, not only was the fitness-biometric wearable space already saturated by last year and in need of consolidation, clearly no single wristband or other wearable device showed signs of mass market potential, with declining shipments forecast this year. Further, research had already revealed early in 2014 that fitness bands essentially had a "wrist-life" of six months, before being abandoned by about a third of their wearers. Junking wearable devices was the big trend.
Yet there is evidence of escalating interest in wearable tech in social media, with conversations nearly doubling since last year. As expected, the social convo trends confirm the "style problem," as seen in the NetBase sentiment drivers cloud below. Other trending themes detected though our social media lens are a growing smartwatch interest, more advanced functionality and seamless integration with lifestyles.
Even if you speculate about the correlation between human behavior and fitness regimes as a contributing factor in people deserting their devices, all the first and second generation wearable wristbands simply ignored the form-factor. More egregious from a marketing perspective, what little "design" the devices exhibited was purely masculine, ignoring not only the burgeoning women's fitness market, women's aesthetics, but the simple fact that we women are not only early adopters of tech, but the leading tech purchasing demographic, according to Intel researcher Genevieve Bell. And, surprise, we're older than the Valley-boys realize, says Bell.
At this year's International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) many veteran reporters took note of the advent of feminine aesthetics (booth babes excluded) among the 400 or so wearables on display. While clearly attracted to MisFit's Swarovski crystal-encrusted fitness and sleep tracker smart wristband, not all agreed that glitter would suffice as a mass market catalyst, albeit the trend in fashionable "smart jewelry."
Others betting on affordable fitness/sleep tracker smartwatches at CES included Withing's Activité Pop, viewed by some as a souped up watch-yep, it tells time-though its silicon band likely won't make it to the smart jewelry counter.
Notably, MisFit's partnership with a jewelry designer in indicative of a trend among technology companies partnering with fashion designers. For example, Opening Ceremony/Intel's co-creation of MICA, as well as Tory Burch's smartband partnership with FitBit. Apple Watch, too, enlisted designers from the fashion world, evidently positioned to straddle both the tech and growing fashion forward smart jewelry markets.
Another important theme this year will be fashion wearables made from smart textiles, apparel embedded with smart fibers or sensors. The market is still young and wide open, but fiber technology incubators like Manufacture NYC, a Brooklyn-based manufacturing innovation hub for apparel, textiles and wearable tech, are attracting investors.
Betting on the style frontier, even behemoths like Flextronics, whose design and mobility unit manufactures wearable technology, are recruiting fashion designers. On the designer fashion side, Ralph Lauren is a frontrunner in innovating competitive tech sports garments, and last year wove biometric sensors into shirts for the US Open.
In the field of wearable headsets, experimentation seems to be the pattern for now, with meager sense of fashion. Gone is the Augmented Reality Google Glass. Enter Virtual Reality OcculusVR. The new cool kid on the block: Microsoft, with its HoloLens. But you probably wouldn't want to be caught wearing one of these head mounts outside a Star Trek convention.
Personally, I prefer fine tailoring with a touch of asymmetry. How about a Misfit Swarovski Shine for one wrist, an Apple Watch for the other.