Smart Watch Apple watch is  going to be available in the shops starting April 24 2015. Most analysts predict 30 million units or more  to be bought in the next twelve months. This is much more than the 1.2 million sold by the Samsung the current volume seller or 700K by Pebble the Kick starter graduate.

 There are some who are less sanguine. It is not very obvious what benefits having an Apple watch gives since you still need the phone and it is not exactly cheap. Nike reduction of effort or withdrawal from Fuelband does give cause. Nike had a successful shoe insert which was used by runners to check on their activity on apps on a phone. That however was 25USD type device compared to USD 250 range Fuelband.Most users report loosing interest in the fitness trackers after a few weeks. Apple is trying to do several things to ensure success. It is positioning the USD 17,000  gold edition as a high end fashion statement ( a unusual case of mass market brand trying to be  niche uber luxury at the same time) and adding health tracking as a core draw. In a great PR piece on 12 March 2015 Apple’s CEO Tim Cook called into CNBC and wished Jim Cramer on his 10th Anniversary of the mad Money Show.During the chat he played up the medical connection. Cook said that the watch's impact on health has been so strong that within the first 24 hours of announcing the research kit some 11,000 people signed up for a study in cardiovascular disease through Stanford University. Cook said it would typically have taken 50 medical centers an entire year to sign up that many people.
"Research kit is an absolute game changer ," Cook said.
  Fashion goes digital?  For the Jewelry and fashion industry the march of electronics poses a challenge. Some think it a kludge to add glitzy displays and some think this will spell the doom of old world fashion. Montblanc has a interesting minimalist add on a e-strap to its mechanical watch.  It is attached on the watch strap under the wrist and displays notifications etc. Goes well with form and function without invading that conversation and breeching etiquette by ignoring the person next to you for that ethereal message.

The Uno Noteband is a similar focused device for those who do not want a duplicate Smartphone on their wrist but just the notifications. You deal with the important ones one your paired smartphone.  Other Luxury Swiss watchmakers are divided and while some are ignoring this others are taking defensive positions. Tag Heuer will be introducing a smart watch developed in collaboration with Intel and Google. Google has also partnered with Luxury eye glass maker Luxottica owner of Ray Ban and Oakley to design “innovative iconic wearable” . However as a reminder of the stop start nature of innovation Google has downplayed its beta rollout of Google Glass. Unlike Apple which does its prototype and market research in intense privacy Google was doing a public alpha rollout of a half done product and it did not play well. However there are many industries ( Insurance claims assessors, Operation Theatre, High tech equipment repair) where Google glass offers immense benefits.  Vast and diverse usage Wearable incorporating sensors and communication are not just bands or watches but can come as Eyeglass, helmets, straps( chest ECG) , patches, inserts  or printed ( Shoe and clothing)  and ingestible.
 

Wearable’s have use in a vast range of industries and applications as captured in this Beecham Research graphic above.
  Drivers Wearable’s benefit can be considered along the following factors

1) Productivity: Avoiding the need to slip out that Smartphone to see a notification can be a productivity enhancer for some users.

2) Security: Emergency Response Systems especially for children, women and old age is a popular use case for wearable’s. These allow the wearer to press a PANIC button on a device to initiate a message to selected caregivers and even the police or Hospital. Some devices may have intelligence to detect a fall or abnormal lack of activity ( Not waking up in the morning) and initiate communication with care givers. Phillips Lifeline GoSafe, SensGiz Star and VESAG watch are examples of this.

3) Quantified Self ;(Fitness)  Tracker and Diagnostic:. Initial devices were more single issue and geared towards tracking exercise ( Step counting), calorie consumed or spent and assist in weight management. A problem for the tracking devices is the noisy data from current range of sensors. Some trackers like FitBit are as much as 20% off the actual in step counting and accurate detection of falls or other activity needs a lot more from sensors. See https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/02/science-fitbit-fuelband-fitness-trackers-cellphone-health? Apple upgraded to a new set of accelerometers in the iPhone 6 for enhanced accuracy ( paying a reported 3X times older sensors at volumes of 50 Million+) . In general there is a lot of work for all devices to provide clinical level of correlation with the data they measure and report. CCS Insight estimates over 260 vendors in this space and  predicts that there will be 340 brands of wearable devices in use by 2018, 43% of which will be wristband fitness trackers . There are some dark horses here like the Microsoft Band . It is outselling production. SeeTom’s Guide to understand  why?

The GoBe wristband uses a combination of three sensors and a lot of number crunching to determine how many calories you eat and burn on a daily basis. The most unique numbers come from an impedance sensor, which sends high- and low-frequency electrical signals into your wrist tissue to measure changes in the amount of water inside your cells. It also contains a piezoelectric pressure sensor to measure your heart rate, and an accelerometer like any other fitness band to track steps.From water-level data, the GoBe can estimate how much glucose is in each cell. By watching the levels rise and fall over time, it can determine how many calories you eat without the need to manually enter them in an app, and how many of those calories come from carbohydrates, fat, and protein. It combines this data with heart-rate information and some other info (height, weight, age, etc.) to spit out some key metrics

The Embrace attempts to predict seizures. It has been designed with a great deal of attention to making sure people actually wear it. Like fitness-focused wearables, the device tells time and keeps tabs on metrics like physical activity and sleep. But the Embrace goes one step further, measuring its wearer’s stress levels by tracking something called electrodermal activity (EDA).

EDA is essentially a measurement of the skin’s conductance; as humans get excited or stressed, the amount of sweat on their skin fluctuates. The Embrace’s sensors are able to track little changes in skin conductance and communicate via vibrations when the wearer is experiencing higher than normal levels of stress. Emiota Belty is a belt with a built-in pedometer, inactivity monitoring, waistline trend analysis and  an actuator that ensures your preferred level of comfort throughout the day by automatically loosening the belt as you sit or tightening the belt as you stand. 

Hyderbad based VESAG started early and have a range of medical devices like Blood Pressure, ECG/EKG, Heart rate and Oximeter  for old age and chronic care needs. They have added a watch and are migrating  to this as a interface and modernizing the user dated  interface. See the ECG/EKG tutorial . Bangalore based Cooey has  in-the-works device for the same segment and will be engaging in early trials with a few hospitals. This is a rich space with many startups .

One example of innovation is Ginger.io, an app that was spun out of the MIT Media Lab that uses predictive methods to support people with conditions such as depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.It sucks in information about a person’s movements, communication and sleeping habits to model their behaviour. 

With their permission, the app can then flag the early warning signs of something going wrong, so a doctor can step in.Bangalore based PAQS is aiming to measure the quality of your personal air
space especially particulate matter and help you navigate better. They expect this can increase your life expectancy. HAXLR8Ralumni David Lu Clarity also aims to do this and help map out notorious hazy Chinese’s cities.

4) Performance Enhancer:
 Exoskeletons are battery powered robots intended to enhance human muscular power like seen in the film Iron man or Avatar and much researched by the US Army. Ekso Bionics helps survivors of stroke, spinal cord injury and other forms of lower extremity weakness to walk again. A wearable bionic suit senses intended weight shift and uses battery driven actuators to enable motion.
Canadian Athos has wired up the exercise dress to provide hints on your posture and how you can improve your exercises.  Bangalore based Retisense is hoping to provide similar feedback to Runners with its Strideanalyzer. Athletes competing

at the highest levels have always had access to a great deal of instrumentation and feedback on improving their technique. Now these are going mainstream.  Zepp moves from theirtennis specific device which was attached to the end of the racket to  an updated Zepp sensor that can be used for golf GolfSense  and other sports. The wearable multi-sport motion sensor features dual accelerometers and a 3-axis gyroscope, and connector wirelessly via Bluetooth 2.1 to a   smartphone. This gives  instant feedback with a 360 degree analysis, as well as video showing club plane, hand path, the ability to compare to a pro, and also check out swing data. The data will give you a “swingscore” to see how you are moving toward your goals, track the club head and hand speed, and review the shape of your swing in space – both for backswing and downswing, including club and hand path. And tick-tock…it will measure your tempo, as well as your backswing position and, with your smartphone in your back pocket, hip rotation (cool….).

Panchkula based LiveBraille has spent a great amount of effort building a  mini glove that can help the Blind navigate new spaces. It has sensors to detect stuff up to  4 meters away and provide haptic feedback. The 4 years + journey is also a great case study of understanding actual needs of users. They found initial solutions over engineered and had to simplify to meet core needs. 
Emotiv Insight is a sleek, 5-channel, wireless headset that records your brainwaves and translates  into meaningful data. Insight introduces  proprietary dry polymer sensors that is expected to give  the same great electrical conductivity without the setup or saline. To get a sense of the potential for neuro-feedback based approach to clam or de stress yourself watch this space. Read https://m.fastcompany.com/3036390/how-i-wore-a-brainwave-reading-headset-for-a-week-and-learned-to-calm-my-mind
The ReST bed embeds air chambers controlled by a pump under a pressure sensitive fabric and claims the ultimate customized sleep experience ( Adaptive Sleep Thinking) 

5) Business Operations:  This may represent a far richer and more enduring source of innovation and value creation. Disney has already deployed its MagicBand RFID chip  a Billion dollar bet to provide personalized experience in the Magic kingdom. This is a smart use of technology for mass personalization. It uses context awareness to help service delivery almost as you realize the need for it. The evolution of personalization into business operations is “magical”.  There are simple low hanging fruits in business settings. Like a wrist band for retail POS sign in by cashiers and service staff.

Oracle uses Proteus Digital Health Feedback System for real time data capture. The Proteus system uses a digital ingestible sensor that transmits signals to a wearable patch, which communicates with a mobile device via Bluetooth. InForm Medication Adherence Insights Cloud Service provides an opportunity for clinical trial sponsors and investigators to streamline and automate the process of confirming patient adherence

Mayo Clinic and Gentag are  developing the next generation of wearable biosensors designed to fight obesity and diabetes. A first-of-its-kind, the wearable patch sensors are the size of a small bandage, and are designed to be painless, wireless and disposable. In the bandage is a sensor that communicates via a closed-loop diabetes management system which is compatible with cell phones. The system will allow researchers to monitor movement and develop treatments for obesity and related conditions

  Rapid evolution We are in early days of the wearable revolution. Instrumenting machines like Wind Turbines and Jet engines have given a lot of improvement.  The core premise of the Quantified Self is the notion that human beings are very complex systems with non linear responses. Instrumenting our self and measuring many more variables and correlating with personalized genomic health care provides the data for modernizing Healthcare and medical practices. They  can come out of the dark ages of heuristic and guesswork  and be effective and efficient  data based disciplines.  This is a two decade roadmap.

Apples Healthkit is an attempt to kick start this. It is an open source ( yes Apple does do Open Source). By using the iPhone’s built-in accelerometer, microphone, camera, and pressure sensors—as well as a bevy of personal trackers that can be connected to the iPhone, like the FitBit, glucose monitors, or AliveCor’s portable electrocardiogram recorder—scientists would be able to gather activity and biometric data on people who opted in to be part of research studies. A typical clinical study might include hundreds or thousands of subjects; a ResearchKit study could easily include hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions. The first five ResearchKit apps (built by hospitals and other ) will target some of the most pressing and costly medical conditions out there: breast cancer, heart disease, asthma, Parkinson’s disease and diabetes.

Google has significant headway in genomics. 23andMe was  offering mass personalized genome based analysis. Google Genomics is applying  search technology to gene and disease mapping. Computational biology gets a makeover with Big Data, Search and Machine Learning chops of Google. For context seehttps://fusion.net/story/34892/artificial-intelligence-genetics/ .

While early movers were tech companies others are not standing still.

Underarmour built its apparel business on empowering athletes.  Kevin Planck CEO is gearing up to win the battle for the Smart Dress. 

Issues to consider Entrepreneurs’ entering this space should consider the following:

Segment: Choose your segment industrial, consumer or medical/diagnostic carefully. Consumer markets may not value features as much as brand. Retailing your device only thru a website or ecommerce sites versus physical stores is also an important decision. 
Battery:  The time between recharge or changing of battery is a important factor for both usability and TCO. Changing batteries too frequently greatly impacts the ROI in a business setting. Wearable’s can deploy a number of strategy to reduce power consumption. This includes storing some data locally and avoiding need for constant connectivity or harvesting energy from motion, solar or kinetic motion.

Aesthetics:    The bar for form and function has been raised with exceptionally great products from Apple etc. A utilitarian sheet metal box is just not acceptable in any market. Most successful companies spend a significant effort in getting the user experience “Right”. This includes troubleshooting and repair and service also.   

Medical grade material:  Wearable’s should not cause sores, have allergic reaction etc esp in damp or hot weather.

MVP or Roadmap:  Minimum Viable Product is a popular construct from the lean startup movement. Be careful as hardware is not something that you can upgrade over the wire. It may make sense to think in terms of a road map and functionality that gets delivered over time. The base hardware should be able to progressively support more features so that it remains functionally complete. Remember users quickly get used to devices and expect more over time. Do not leave simple or obvious holes for competition to score points on. Think chess moves.   This is an edited version of the newsletter for the IoTForIndia Forum . I  would be interested in hearing about applications in Enterprise or at workplace and around business process changes.