The Next Opportunity for Wearables

Consumer study finds growing interest for family and personal safety trackers but an uphill battle for marketing to skeptical consumers.

A new study commissioned by Skyhook (a Liberty Broadband company) has found that 40 percent of consumers are interested in family and personal safety tracking wearables. However, the study of 1,000 consumers also revealed skepticism, with one in four consumers not fully appreciating the value of wearables. The research highlights the challenges wearables manufacturers face as they go-to-market with new types of devices. To view an infographic of the findings, click here.

Conducted by independent research firm Research Now, Skyhook set out to examine the next hot market for wearables and to understand the usefulness of and appetite for location-enhanced wearable devices. The study found that, while there’s still plenty of headroom in the health & fitness market with 81 percent of consumers citing purchasing interest, wearables’ next great market opportunity lies in devices that help track the whereabouts of family members and protect their safety.

But what do wearables manufacturers need to do to convert this interest into actual sales? According to the study, highlighting the value of location capabilities could be the key.

In Skyhook’s study, consumers strongly agreed that the ability to accurately pinpoint their location and deliver contextually relevant experiences based on it would influence their purchasing consideration. It found that:

• The accuracy of location data is critical to 88 percent of current non-wearable owners.

• The ability to create customized experiences based on the user’s location is valuable to 74 percent of current non-wearable owners.

“This research confirms that family and personal safety trackers are the next hot market for wearables but there's work to be done by manufacturers to showcase the value of advanced location technologies," said Skyhook vice president of product David Bairstow. “This category has shown promise for some time but previous location functionalities were limited at best. Today it's possible to embed powerful, advanced location services right into a chip on the device, helping to create new use cases and experiences and also untether the device from a smartphone."