Wearable Computing & Fashion News - Page 21

There are plenty of smartwatches and other wearables hitting the market, but most consumers just don't seem interested enough to buy them, according to a report from eMarketer. Industry forecasts look good, and consumer awareness of wearables is increasing, but trying to convince us to actually purchase a wearable remains difficult.

"Even though the Apple Watch has had early sales success, consumer survey data suggests manufacturers, specifically their marketing teams, have significant work to do in convincing the average person that a smartwatch is as worthy of their time and money as tablets proved to be," said Cathy Boyle, analyst at eMarketer, in the report.

Boyle also admitted that it's difficult trying to gauge the current wearables market, as more products hit the market - and what is categorized as a wearable also tends to change. Even with consumer doubt at the moment, it looks like the future still looks good for manufacturers creating wearables. In February, the Gartner research group said there was 38 percent year-over-year growth - and that trend will likely continue in the future.

Additional models of the Apple Watch will be available for purchase in retail stores starting on June 26, in a move that Apple hopes will increase sales at its retail stores. In addition, the Apple Watch will be released in Spain, Italy, South Korea, Mexico, Singapore, Switzerland and Taiwan on June 26.

"The response to Apple Watch has surpassed our expectations in every way," said Jeff Williams, SVP of operations at Apple. "We're also making great progress with the backlog of Apple Watch orders."

Even though Apple hasn't issued public numbers related to Watch units sold or shipped, company officials said the demand has outpaced current supply levels. S&P Capital IQ analyst Angelo Zino told Reuters that it'd be "plausible" for 30 million Apple Watch units to be shipped in 2016.

Do you want an affordable wearable? Forty percent of wearable devices are priced at less than $100, as the market quickly evolves.

The top five wearable manufacturers based on Q1 2015 market share: Fitbit (34.2 percent), Xiaomi (24.6 percent), Garmin (6.1 percent), Samsung (5.3 percent), and Jawbone (4.4 percent).

"As with any young market, price erosion has been quite drastic," said Jitesh Ubrani, senior research analyst of Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers at IDC. "We now see over 40 percent of the devices priced under $100, and that's one reason why the top 5 vendors have been able to grow their dominance from two thirds of the market in the first quarter of last year to three quarters this quarter."

Computex 2015 - We haven't seen too much about smartwatches since CES Las Vegas back in January, but ASUS has been working on a new model since then - the ASUS VivoWatch.

Featuring a 128x128 resolution, low power consumption and Corning Gorilla Glass 3, the internals boast a 3-axis accelerometer, optical heart rate sensors with "ASUS VivoPulse technology," Bluetooth 4.0 and up to 10 days worth of battery life with 'normal operation' taking place - ASUS claims this beast will charge in only 1-2 hours.

Wrapping up the feature list is a water resistance rating of IP67, a standard 22mm strap size and a small 50g weight.

With Google I/O 2015 now over, one of the more interesting things that the Google ATAP team unveiled was Project Soli. Project Soli is a Kinect-like system that is also similar to Leap Motion, where it will eventually see gesture-based controls to Android wearables.

Project Soli uses a "broad beam radar to measure doppler image, IQ and spectrogram" reports Engadget. The chip itself recognizes movement, velocity and distance, which can all be programmed to change the input based on that distance. This will see gesture-based controls on mobile devices in the near future, with hand motions that would be quite natural, something that Technical Program Lead from ATAP, Ivan Poupyrev, explains as: "What we propose is that you use a hand motions vocabulary".

The Project Soli chip itself features a 60Hz radar spectrum, going nuts at 10,000 frames per second. The final chip will feature everything required to be plug and play, including the antennas. ATAP says that the device can be made to scale, and that they are still working on finalizing the board. The team has already gotten the device from the size of a pizza box, to around the size of an SD card in just 10 months time. Project Soli will hopefully be rolled out to developers later this year.

Computex 2015: We're just a few days away from Computex 2015, and the tech world will turn its focus towards Taipei. Traditionally used to show off PCs, mobile devices, and other consumer-centric devices, there could be a new focus at this year's show: wearables and products that connect to the Internet of Things (IoT).

As consumers become more comfortable with wearables, Computex could be a major launching pad for announcements - with Acer, ASUS, and other major Asian companies expected to announce new consumer wearable products. In addition, smaller companies could use the major tech trade show to announce and launch devices, especially if they can connect to smartphones and tablets.

Meanwhile, IoT should have a major presence at the show, and with more business partnerships being forged, consumers are looking ahead to the future. An estimated 30 billion to 50 billion Things will likely be on the market by 2020, and the emerging market will only accelerate higher.

The Apple Watch is expected to help propel smartwatches and the wearables to the next level, but it still seems to be nothing more than a want over an actual need, according to a recent survey.

Although 39 percent of Apple Watch owners report being "very satisfied," 36 percent are neutral on the device, and 25 percent of users reported being disappointed. However, the Wristly survey only asked 59 Apple Watch owners, so future studies will likely use significantly larger sample sizes.

One owner's comment stood out: "I think the watch is good, but I feel that it is not a technological need but a technological want. I feel like your life will be fine either way. It's fun to have, it's a conversation starter, it does make a few things a little bit easier, but it's not a necessary thing to own."

If you're not a celebrity or part of the 1%, you probably haven't received your Apple Watch Edition yet. Sure, you might have slapped down over $10,000 for Apple's first wearable, but consumers are only beginning to receive their expensive new Watch in the last few days.

Now that it's here, we have an unboxing video that you can check out above, which shows off the external packaging Apple has used. For $10,000+, the packaging is virtually identical to that of the stainless steel Apple Watch, except for the 18-karat gold casing and unique band on the side of the Watch.

Inside of the Apple Watch Edition box, we have the colored leather-covered box that features the MagSafe connector, with a color-matched cleaning cloth with the word 'Edition' embossed into the material. The very first time you boot up the Watch Edition, a description onf the Watch's hardware materials will appear, as you can see in the image above.

Chip manufacturer ARM and humanitarian aid group UNICEF are teaming up to deliver wearables in developing countries. ARM and UNICEF hope to increase education and improve health standards in countries that are in need of assistance.

As part of the Wearables for Good Challenge, manufacturers and designers have the chance to help create low-cost, efficient and sustainable wearables and sensors. Both ARM and UNICEF will work together to choose which countries should receive immediate help, with trials expected over the next year.

"It feels to me like the pace of innovation has increased, the cost of innovation has come down and we are in a world where people want to partner," said Simon Segars, CEO of ARM, in a statement to CNET. "So if some good comes from this, then that will be great."

It looks like Google is expanding its Google Glass team, which is now working on "smart eyewear and other related products". The Mountain View-based giant is hiring a slew of new people to expand its products and services.

With Google going on a hiring spree, we could expect Google Glass 2.0, or a totally new Glass to be unveiled at Google I/O at the end of the month. The company has been posting job listing ads for its Glass team, something that has included an Audio Hardware Manager, a Human Factors Designer, an RF Systems Engineer, and a Hardware Automation Engineer (Manufacturing).

Google has said that it is working on a new version of Glass for consumers, but we haven't heard much about it lately, until now. The new description for the Glass team teases: "The Google Glass division is a world-class team focused on the cutting edge of hardware, software and industrial design. It is charged with pioneering, developing, building and launching smart eyewear and other related products in line with Google's ambitious and visionary objectives".