Get Started for FREE
Sign up with Facebook Sign up with X
I don't have a Facebook or a X account
 Your new post is loading...
Your new post is loading...
Scoop.it!
Despite the arrival of strong competitors such as Apple and Xiaomi, Fitbit has retained the lead in the global wearables market in the second quarter of 2015. The maker of fitness tracking devices shipped 4.4 million units between April and June, an increase of more than 150 percent over last year's June quarter. Fitbit's focus on fitness tracking functionality appears to resonate well with customers who value simplicity over the added functionality of competing devices.... Via Jeff Domansky
Richard Platt's insight:
Overall, the wearables market more than tripled in size compared to last year's second quarter. Between April and June, 18.1 million wearable devices were shipped around the world according to IDC's estimates. Despite the arrival of strong competitors such as Apple and Xiaomi, Fitbit has retained the lead in the global wearables market in Q2 of 2015. The maker of fitness tracking devices shipped 4.4 million units between April and June, an increase of more than 150% over last year's June quarter. Fitbit's focus on fitness tracking functionality appears to resonate well with customers who value simplicity over the added functionality of competing devices. 
Scoop.it!
The NIH is currently asking for pubic feedback on using smartphones and wearables to collect health and lifestyle data for its Precision Medicine Initiative — an initiative that hopes to collect data on more than 1 million individuals. The NIH’s Precision Medicine Initiative is described as:
What exactly that means is a bit nebulous, but a New England Journal of Medicineperspective sheds some light:
Qualified researchers from many organizations will, with appropriate protection of patient confidentiality, have access to the cohort’s data, so that the world’s brightest scientific and clinical minds can contribute insights and analysis.
The NIH is specifically asking the following:
Willingness of participants to carry their smartphone and wear wireless sensor devices sufficiently throughout the day so researchers can assess their health and activities.Willingness of participants without smartphones to upgrade to a smartphone at no expense.How often people would be willing to let researchers collect data through devices without being an inconvenience.The kind of information participants might like to receive back from researchers, and how often.Other ways to conveniently collect information from participants apart from smart phones or wearable devices.
It’s exciting to see the NIH see the potential of digital health. They specifically mention how smartphones and wearables can be utilized to collect a wide variety of data: location information, mobile questionnaires, heart rate, physical activity levels, and more.
There is already a robust discussion taking place in the comments section at the NIH website, and we encourage our readers to contribute.
Richard Platt's insight:
The NIH is specifically asking the following:
Lionel Reichardt / le Pharmageek's curator insight,
July 31, 2015 1:31 AM
The NIH is specifically asking the following:
Scoop.it!
Wearable computing just got a date with augmented reality, called the Cicret Bracelet. Will the pair work out? - B.J. Murphy for Serious Wonder
Richard Platt's insight:
More on the Cicret Bracelet that has a pico-projector, accelerometer, proximity sensors, etc...kind of interesting, still thinking about the use case beyond the novelty of the wrist displayed screen which may make this the wearable device that does more than give you alerts from your smartphone.
|
Scoop.it!
From
phys
UOW's Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials (ISEM) has successfully pioneered a way to construct a flexible, foldable and lightweight energy storage device that provides the building blocks for next-generation batteries needed to power wearable electronics and implantable medical devices.
Via Jeff Domansky
Richard Platt's insight:
The conundrum researchers have faced in developing miniature energy storage devices, such as batteries and supercapacitors, has been figuring out how to increase the surface area of the device, to store more charge, without making it larger. "Among all modern electronic devices, portable electronics are some of the most exciting," ISEM PhD student Monirul Islam said. "But the biggest challenge is to charge storage in a small volume as well as being able to deliver that charge quickly on demand." To solve this problem, a team of PhD students, led by Dr Konstantin Konstantinov under the patronage of ISEM Director Professor Shi Xue Dou and with the support of Professor Hua Kun Liu, the head of ISEM Energy Storage Division, have developed a three-dimensional structure using a flat-pack self-assembly of three components: graphene, a conductive polymer and carbon nanotubes, which are atom-thick lattice-like networks of carbon formed into cylinders. - The so-called wonder material graphene, made from single atom-thick layers of graphite, was a suitable candidate due its electronic performance and mechanical strength. "We knew in theory that if you can make a sort of carbon skeleton you have a greater surface area and greater surface area means more charge," Dr Konstantinov said. "If we could efficiently separate the layers of carbon we could then use both surfaces of each layer for charge accumulation. The problem we faced was that fabricating these 3D shapes in practice, not just theory, is a challenging, if not impossible task." The solution was to flat-pack the components by building the 3D shape layer-by-layer, much like a miniature exercise in cake decoration. The graphene in liquid form was mixed with the conductive polymer and reduced to solid and the carbon nanotubes carefully inserted between the graphene layers to form a self-assembled flat-packed, wafer-thin supercapacitor material.
Jeff Domansky's curator insight,
August 24, 2015 10:15 PM
New materials provide potential for many new wearable technology applications.
Scoop.it!
With the Apple Watch launch, and its potential to upend the wearables market, a few months away, Canalys reports that the current market leader for “smart wearable bands” — any wristworn device that can run third-party applications — is Samsung. Meanwhile, the “basic wearable band” market, which Canalys defines as wearables that can’t run apps, is still led by Fitbit. The up-and-comer in the non-smartwatch wearable market is Xiaomi, whose focus on the Chinese market and low price point have catapulted it into the spotlight. It has shipped more than a million Mi Bands, 103,000 of those on the first day. “Though the Mi Band is a lower-margin product than competing devices, Xiaomi entered the wearables market with a unique strategy, and its shipment volumes show how quickly a company can become a major force in a segment based solely on the size of the Chinese market,” analyst Jason Low said in a statement. Canalys didn’t share the total shipment numbers for basic bands, but said 4.6 million smart bands shipped in 2014, only 720,000 of which were Android Wear. Of those, Motorola led the market with its Moto 360. Samsung led the smart band segment overall, owing to the wide range of devices the company has available. “‘Samsung has launched six devices in just 14 months, on different platforms and still leads the smart band market,” VP and principal analyst Chris Jones said in a statement. “But it has struggled to keep consumers engaged and must work hard to attract developers while it focuses on [operating system] Tizen for its wearables.” Canalys predicts Apple’s entry into the market will blow up the category, and says the device’s battery life will be the main advantage over Android Wear to begin with. “Apple made the right decisions with its WatchKit software development kit to maximize battery life for the platform, and the Apple Watch will offer leading energy efficiency,” analyst Daniel Matte said in a statement. “Android Wear will need to improve significantly in the future, and we believe it will do so.”
Cheryl Palmer's curator insight,
February 19, 2015 7:06 PM
WEARABLES - Market report summary on the current (Feb 2015) state of the wearables market with link to data source. Useful to get insight into where major players are focusing their development dollars.
Scoop.it!
Late last month, TechnologyAdvice released an interesting study looking at whether most people want to use health wearables such as fitness trackers and other tools for health purposes. Here are the top-line results of this study: - 75 percent of U.S. adults do not track their weight, diet, or exercise using a health tracking apps or devices - 43.7 percent had no specific reason for not tracking their fitness - 27.2 percent won’t use these devices due to lack of interest - 25.1 percent of adults are currently using either a fitness tracker or a smartphone app to monitor their health, weight, or exercise. This sounds like pretty bad news for those who believe the era of health wearables is here. But, this study also raises another question: Are health wearables evangelists fools? Fard Johnmar, Founder of Enspektos explains why relevancy is the key to boosting the adoption of health wearables. Read more at http://hitconsultant.net/2014/10/08/are-health-wearables-evangelists-fools/ Via nrip, Lionel Reichardt / le Pharmageek
|
Surprising strength of Fitbit vs Apple.