siliconindia | | June 20199away when doctors will reach out to you with personalized prevention recommendations just before you are about to fall sick.Multiple industries have benefited from wearables and other types of connected IoT (internet of things) devices. Wearables and IoT devices are reshaping the manufacturing industry by improving the productivity and efficiency of the workforce. Wearable tech has been used to increase safety awareness, monitoring exhaustion and worker's fatigue, reducing the risk of injury and modernization of assembly line. For example, BMW has deployed a unique "Chairless Chair" employees can wear to enhance their comfort on the floor. Airlines have leveraged virtual reality headsets to train engineers and flight crew. Wearables are being used for se-curity and authentication in finance and banking. Life insur-ance companies are encouraging consumers to lead healthier lifestyles by collecting their biometric data from their fitness trackers and offering rewards. Similarly, wearable technol-ogy companies have received FDA approval and have part-nered with health insurance companies to help people track their health and offer personalized solutions.Market Leaders in Wearable TechnologyThe worldwide market for wearable devices grew 31.4% during 4Q18, reaching a new high of 59.3 million units ac-cording to IDC. Shipments for the entire year of 2018 grew by 27.5% with 172.2 million wearables shipped. From re-gional perspective, mature markets - comprised of North America, Japan and Western Europe have continued to dom-inate the global wearable industry have declined 6.3% year over year. Meanwhile, Asia/Pacific, Central & Eastern Eu-rope, Middle East and Africa and Latin America grew 14% year over year as basic wearables are still in high demand.Some of the key corporate players in wearables includes Apple, Xiaomi, Huawei, Fitbit, Garmin and Samsung Elec-tronics. Apple maintained the number 1 position with 16.2 million devices shipped in 4Q18 based off to a strong start for Series 4 watch and Airpods. Fashion juggernaut such as Fossil, Tag Heuer, Breitling are entering into smart-watch market and Companies such as Nike, Under Armour, Ralph Lauren, Alphabet and Microsoft are developing smart clothing technology.Transformation of Health Care to Digital HealthIn the wake of increasing rates of heart disease, obesity, and other lifestyle diseases, as well as the advancement in sen-sor technologies, opportunities have emerged in research and development for wearable technology in digital health. Wearable devices are being equipped with sensors that pro-vide real-time data to monitor heartbeats, measure levels of cholesterol, track calories, take blood pressure readings, check oxygen levels, identify sleep patterns, and monitor other daily activities.Jawbone was the first to invent the fitness-minded wrist wearables. It featured 24/7 lifestyle tracking of sleep, activ-ity, food, emotions and social engagements via friendly fit-ness challenges. Our new venture, Jawbone Health, focuses on consumer health by catching lifestyle diseases early and guide users towards a healthier life. This entailed taking all the learnings from the consumer electronics space and be-havior data from millions of users and apply these to con-sumer health. Our mission at Jawbone Health is building a service that improves health through prevention.Future Predictions on WearablesI anticipate that innovations in wearable technology and con-sumer demand will continue to grow by leaps and bounds over the next few years. Market researchers have already es-timated the industry to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.2% percent from 2016 to 2022, which would make wearable technology a $57.6 billion industry. That is huge!Wearable technology already has its place in entertain-ment, communications, media, retail and fitness. Users have come to want more from their wearable devices, and ad-vanced wearables have started to meet that demand. There are plenty of opportunities and challenges the technology will face, especially in the healthcare industry. Wearables are here to stay, and they will continue to integrate into healthcare as they evolve. In my opinion, wearables in dig-ital health will have a strong positive impact on preventive medicine and help people live longer.
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