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Wearable Forecasts

Athena @ ST 23 April 2019


Currently 1-in-5 adults wears a smartwatch or fitness strap and by 2020, the wearable tech market will be worth €30bn globally - proving that this market is one to watch.
What is changing?

Read to discover what our robot, Athena, has found on the future of wearables and act accordingly, or click any link to read the evidence she found in 2,704 reports, articles and PowerPoints from the Web and Social Media in a few seconds.

If you are new to foresight, we recommend you view this slide presentation first: to get the best out of this report.

Summary

Drivers

Analysis
This summary analysis draws from our robot's below visualizations of the future of wearables and draws from different vantage points to tell the story of what's emerging just like a GPS system.

Cloud: From work and healthcare to entertainment and robots the opportunities are immense.

Systems map: The dominant theme is technology healthcare as the likely first sector to really adopt and change using wearables as an early warning system for health issues.
Radar chart: Mobile devices will be heavily used in conjunction with worn sensors presenting major growth opportunities for electronics, telecommunications and IT and software firms. Even cars will likely be connected to wearable devices to improve driving safety and with the advent of driverless cars to possibly take a suddenly and seriously sick person to hospital without human intervention. There are seemingly endless wearable opportunities to assist with many human issues going forward.

Spline chart: The next ten years are likely to see an explosion of wearable developments based on current expert projections after which a new business as usual paradigm may arise.

Sentiment: The adoption of fitness watches by many of the public is a very positive indicator that sentiment towards wearables will continue to be very positive going forward. There are very few negative sentiments currently related to wearables which revolve around cost, increased regulation and potential cyberattacks.

Pie Charts: The consumer tipping point for wearables is a generation away according to our robot's calculations given that ¬ 90% of the development effort is just evolving, gaining traction or early stage with the future impact counted in billions of dollars.

Heat map: This is an interesting chart because it shows that sectoral development efforts beyond IT are mostly taking place in the United States and that IT is the prime focus of leading countries - Australia, Canada and China. Wearables, excluding smart watches, has yet to emerge from a weak signal to a truly growth industry with many countries and sectors offering future solutions.

Emergent drivers: So, it's no surprise that wearables have high future opportunity but are likely to really to take off in a decade or so.

Leader board: Apple is the current most mentioned organization for developing wearables beyond smartwatches, with Samsung, Fitbit and Google in the van. If you are in the health sector, these are four companies that should be on your radar.

SWOT: Lastly, the SWOT chart shows many opportunities for wearables with some weaknesses and threats too. The water looks warm to capture significant share of this market for technology entrepreneurs to work with healthcare companies right now.

Selected Potential Solutions

Visuals
For more detailed explanation of the graphics below please click here. All outlooks based on 2025 unless otherwise stated.

Cloud
From work and healthcare to entertainment and robots the opportunities are immense.

System map
The dominant theme is technology healthcare as the likely first sector to really adopt and change using wearables as an early warning system for health issues.

Radar chart
Mobile devices will be heavily used in conjunction with worn sensors presenting major growth opportunities for electronics, telecommunications and IT and software firms. Even cars will likely be connected to wearable devices to improve driving safety and with the advent of driverless cars to possibly take a suddenly and seriously sick person to hospital without human intervention. There are seemingly endless wearable opportunities to assist with many consumer issues going forward.



Graph-It
By 2025, healthcare will be the dominant sector for wearables and in conjunction with AI will use the enormous amount of data then collected to better manage individual and population health.



Spline
The next ten years are likely to see an explosion of wearable developments based on current expert projections after which a new business as usual paradigm may arise.



Sentiment
The adoption of fitness watches by many of the public is a very positive indicator that sentiment towards wearables will continue to be very positive going forward. There are very few negative sentiments currently related to wearables which revolve around cost, increased regulation and potential cyberattacks.



Pie Charts
The consumer tipping point for wearables is a generation away according to our robot's calculations given that ¬ 90% of the development effort is just evolving, gaining traction or early stage with the future impact counted in billions of dollars.

Heat map
This is an interesting chart because it shows that sectoral development efforts beyond IT are mostly taking place in the United States and that IT is the prime focus of leading countries - Australia, Canada and China. Wearables, excluding smart watches, has yet to emerge from a weak signal to a truly growth industry with many countries and sectors offering future solutions.



Emergent drivers
So, it's no surprise that wearables have high future opportunity but are likely to really to take off in a decade or so.

Leader board: Apple is the current most mentioned organization for developing wearables beyond smartwatches, with Samsung, Fitbit and Google in the van. If you are in the health sector, these are four companies that should be on your radar.

SWOT
Lastly, the SWOT chart shows many opportunities for wearables with some weaknesses and threats too. The water looks warm to capture significant share of this market for technology entrepreneurs to work with healthcare companies right now.

Evidence
Search term: 'wearable*'. Use this search term to explore our database for more knowledge and wisdom and latest data and information on the topic.

Implications

What's Changing?

market

device

shipment

technology

industry

wearables

wearable tech

wearable business

share

watch

value

Questions

Potential Responses

Use the findings of this Trend Alert to determine and rank your options and choose how you can respond by examining your Options either on your own publicly, or collaboratively if our private client.

Contact us if you would like some free training with this Options method.

Custom Services
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Options | Gapfinder | Causal Layered Analysis | Scenarios | Three Horizons

Do contact us to see how we can help you track emerging uncertainty issues and developments as they are announced or reported.

Sources
Athena used the sources below as the top ones to create this report and determined which embedded forecasts are included in this Trend Alert. She found 2,704 forecasts in seconds on 23rd April 2019 to allow us to publish this report in less than two hours. She can turn these into PowerPoint slides and Audio files in minutes too as you wish, or we can prepare a full customized and professionally written brief for you to order covering all these forecasts.

Athena
Athena does show duplicates to aid your understanding of themes as well as contradictory forecasts. She may also show near-duplicates. You can speed read past the duplicates and near-duplicates if you wish, though the latter may show additional information. You can use the contradictory, and likely uncertain forecasts she finds to imagine different scenarios. The future is unpredictable, but we can examine the possibilities and choose our preferable future from the choices she presents.

Athena is apolitical. She will report forecasts from different viewpoints however distasteful that might be to our own values. Wearing rose-colored glasses is not her purpose; reporting potential futures is. So, we recommend you check her veracity before responding to her extracted forecasts.

Just like humans, Athena can be fallible. Do recognize that you and your associates are biased too. But whereas you tire, make mistakes and only recognize what interests you, she does not. She might miss or misinterpret as you do, but with far less frequency and she'll take uncomfortable truths and alternative ideas in her stride. But, please let us know if you feel her bias can be reduced. We want to do our best for you. And, as with any research, you should check and triangulate her findings for yourself.

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