The Impact of Wearables on Existing Smartphone Applications

The Impact of Wearables on Existing Smartphone Applications

The majority of wearable gadgets today are smartphone friendly devices, designed to work and serve as an extension of your handset. The current popularity of wearable gadgets –watches, Google Glass and many more, has raised a number of interesting questions about how they will affect the smartphones.

Smartphones have changed the way we communicate with technology. With over millions and millions of available application, communicating via calls and texts is no longer the primary function of our smartphones. We use them for different number of purposes to make our lives easier, healthier, better or just to create more fun through social networking, entertainment, gaming and productivity apps. The wearable technology industry barely existed few years ago. From Jawbone and Android wear to Apple’s iWatch, the wearables market is expanding faster.

Wearable Technology – Impact on Smartphone Apps

“Wearables” can be considered as the future of mobile. One of the biggest benefits of smartphones for digital marketers is the ability to trace and record a consumer’s habits. The flexibility to tap in and collect data of potential customers only allows for a better marketing plan.

The future of the smartphone won’t look much different than it does today. The role it plays in our lives may be considerably different. Wearables may not replace the smartphone but can be considered as extensions of the smartphone and alternative digital devices that provide connected experiences where other devices can’t go.

Wearable technologies are going to provide marketers with new information. The primary market drivers behind its growth are – health and fitness. Activity tracking devices such as the Fitbit and mobile apps such as MyFitnessPal reflects new patterns of consumer behaviour driven and enabled by wearable technology. To better understand and influence their own health and fitness levels, millions of people are now using these technologies to monitor their eating habits, activity levels, weight and sleeping patterns.

Fitness and Health wearable devices motivate healthy behavior; bring new capabilities to wearers and provide useful medical insights. Accelerometers, the sensors often found in fitness trackers that detects motion provides researchers with the wealth of information. It provides them an opportunity to study not only exercise but also sitting, standing, walking, running and eventually a better idea of how these activities affect health. Organizations around the world, including the NHS have now an opportunity and potential to personalize healthcare for every NHS patient. By identifying people at risk of becoming ill or developing a serious condition, health care providers can recommend preventive measures.

In social media, Wearable technology is expected to cause a big shift in how consumers use and interact via social networks. To say, Twitter, where you want to encourage clickthroughs to your site or blog post or landing page may adopt a smartwatch easily as compared to Facebook which may work better on smartphone.

Most wearables don’t seem to be meant to replace smartphones. They extract useful data from a primary mobile device. If the smartphone is also the engine that drives wearables then we’ll need our mobile devices more than ever. Wearables have so far lacked the elegant design and ease of use that helped smartphones to succeed, however this is now changing. Wearable technology has tremendous potential and surely they will drive the future designs and functionality of the smartphone (Android & iOS) applications.