2 articles that bookend the CES wearable madness

The bad: I tried on 56 wearables today. Here’s a photo of every single one of them

The sensible: Fitbit's CEO explains why his company isn't making a smartwatch

Pre-Apple Watch, the more time passes the less seems to happen

In some ways, many things have changed since I last wrote in this blog.

• Android Fit is out in the Lollipop OS update, as is Apple's HeathKit
• More Android Wear devices are out
• Samsung has released a bunch more watches, and more significantly, a medically-advanced band reference design (Simband)
• Apple Watch has been announced

But in many ways nothing has changed, nor is going to change for many months.

During this time, we can predict:

• More Android-based hardware will be released, but there won't be a "killer design"
• Samsung will continue its shotgun experimentation with consumer design
• People will continue to rumourmill about Apple Watch

But the bottomline is everyone will be waiting for the Apple Watch launch to see how big the smartwatch market will actually be. At least 24 million, according to UBS.

In the meantime, niche parts of the market are shaping up in a very interesting way.

One example of this is the approach from current tracker leader Fitbit, which has carefully upscaled its range to just below smartwatch level (or fitness super watch as it labels it).

More significantly, its two future devices have constant heartrate detection, underlining that this is now a standard feature in the market.

Certainly, I'll be picking up a Charge HR band when they're released.

And similarly the other devices that are catching my eye are those that input some elements of smartwatch functionality within the classic watch aesthetic.

Prime example is current Indiegogo project Nevo (above), which is a nice analogue watch with Misfit-like activity indicator lights around the dial. It can also alert you to notifications. Best of all, it looks like a nice watch. 

If only Nike+ could connect the dots...

Having finally suffered from the dreaded Fitbit Sweat Rash, I've bought three new straps for my Flex.

Looking at the new straps, I really hadn't realised just how hammered the original two pink straps had become.

Coincidentally, yesterday I got an email from Nike reminding me to replace my running shoes every 300 km. Interestingly, according to Nike+, my current pair have done almost 600 km.

If software was connected to sales, it could offer me a discount.

But, as with so many aspects of the health/fitness wearable industry, there's plenty of data in the system, but few smarts on how to use it effectively.

Apple Watch - a sub-standard health wearable?

Amidst all the hype, there was an interesting take on the Apple Watch from one expert.

Although Apple hasn't revealed full details about HealthKit and how it will integrate with the watch - which won't be out until early 2015 anyhow, Niharika Midha, who covers medical devices for GlobalData called the Apple Watch a "robust offering".

But noted its, "health and fitness trackers are largely dependent on the iPhone's WiFi and Global Positioning System capabilities, which is a considerable drawback in comparison to other vendors.

"For example, the Samsung Gear S has a built-in GPS and can be used to track activities without requiring connection to the handset."

Indeed, GPS seems to be surprising omission, as many sports watches have this feature as standard. It seems unlikely size would be an issue, although the impact on battery life might be.

"At present, the product is not substantially superior to existing devices in terms of health tracking mechanisms," Midha comments, although adding that presumably Apple will make a watch with standalone GPS functions at some point.

Indeed, when it comes to dedicated medical wearable devices, it's not even clear that a watch configuration would be optimal.

"Google's development of smart contact lenses targeted towards monitoring glucose levels in diabetic patients is potentially groundbreaking," he notes. 

Signal, noise and Apple Watch

I'm always interesting in people making predictions, particularly after reading Nate Silver's The Signal and The Noise.

The nicest thing we can say about them is that they're always wrong. Still, we can learn a lot from their mistakes.

Currently I'm pondering the 'news' that Analysys Mason reckons 1 million smart watches will be sold in 2014. That's likely not a terrible prediction. It's a nascent market, with the Pebble still having the largest install base.

However, Analysys Mason reckons 13.6 million smart watches will be sold in 2015.

An oddly precise number, but the uplift is - of course - predicated on the news that the Apple Watch won't be released until "early 2015".

What's interesting about the prediction, however, is that to my mind it assumes that more than 85 percent of smart watches sold in 2015 will be Apple Watches.

(That's assuming growth of 100 percent for the non-Apple devices that no one cares about. Even if they sell 3 million units, Apple takes 78 percent of the market.)

In that sense, then, Analysys Mason isn't predicting the growth of the smart watch market but the growth of the Apple Watch market; a market that currently doesn't exist.

For the busy doctor, email would save more lives than Fitbit

Two great quotes:

1
For the most part, health wearables are worn by the "wealthy and well."

2
"Doctors would love to be excited about wearables — they're gadget guys at heart — but their day-to-day is spent battling 30 year old fax machines to get your last lab report." says Jeff Tangney, CEO of Doximity, which makes a social communication platform for clinicians.

"For a busy doctor, the ability to use email would save more lives than a Fitbit."

Read the article over on VentureBeat.

Android Wear is GO

On the back of the Google I/O conference in San Francisco, the first Android Wear watches have been released.

LG's G Watch ($229/£159) and Samsung's Gear Live ($199/£169 - more expensive in the UK for some reason) can now be pre-ordered for early July delivery.

Motorola's much anticipated 360 (around $250) is expected sometime during the summer.

On the wrist

Of course, the point of this first generation of smartphones is - like the Pebble - to link to your phone and act as a notification point for messaging and Google Now, as well as providing the opportunity for voice search.

They will also sync with peripherals such as heart rate monitors, although it's not clear that these devices will attract the  fitness crowd per se. Design-wise, they're just a bit professional.

Next up, let's see if Apple can fulfil its "50 million sales" expectations...

Fitness monitors are coming in your ears

Just when you think the wearables market can't get any more weird, along comes something weirder.

To be fair to FreeWavz and its smart earphones, it's not the first attempt to provide an ear-mounted health tracker. LG has announced something similar with its Lifeband Touch Activity Tracker.

And in some ways, the ears aren't a terrible place to measure blood flow, although I'd like to see a side-by-side measure of heart rate accuracy compared to a chest strap.

Yet despite mention of its "medical grade pulse oximeter", the FreeWavz ability to measure O2 saturation seems very odd.

More generally, it seems like FreeWavz might be decent - if expensive - sports headphones with some random health monitoring features thrown into the mix, because that sort of thing sells a Kickstarter campaign.

So, no. I won't be contributing to the $300,000 goal.

If you do, FreeWavz can be currently backed for $179, compared to SRP of $299. 

How Google expects Android Wear to make you more present in the real world

"More present in the real world, yet more connected to the virtual world."

That's what Google's Timothy Jordan reckons is the guiding principle behind Android Wear.

"It's a fundamentally different mobile device," he says of the watch compared to a phone, asking developers to think about the wrist and the micro-interactions that best fit with the form factor.

Of course, voice interaction is probably the most important change, at least in terms of UX.

The diagram below shows how Google thinks Android Wear will improve the speed of getting information.

Check out the full video below.

Why wearables will optimise insurance-based health systems but challenge publicly-funded ones

There was an interesting guest column recently on VentureBeat about the impact of wearables in the US health market.

Now I've always thought that wearables are more likely to be big business in China because it has a very fast growing obesity problem and a very immature health service. That's a good situation for innovation.

However, the US - with its mature obesity problem, mature but broken insurance-based health service and individualistic approach to life - is perhaps an even better environment for the widespread adoption of wearables for personal health.

Making it cheaper with proof

In its simplest form, this could see health insurance companies reducing premiums for people who wear health sensors because - in terms of known data - the personal insurance-based health market has previously always been loaded in favour of the individual.

That's why insurers play by the small print and the attempt to get full disclosure. It's the only weapon they have.

But wearable sensors disrupt this information imbalance. Instead of us telling the insurers how much we don't drink or how much we do run, we'll now have to prove it.

Breaking down the average

For some people, this is bad news, of course. But for generally honest and fit people, it should see a lowering of health costs, and hence will encourage more people to be healthy and fit and prove that they are healthy and fit.

Surely that's one outcome we can all agree is positive.

Of course, this does create a problem for those who aren't or can't prove they are healthy as they will have to bear more of the costs of their healthcare.

No doubt that will be another big political issue, but that's something that's happening through all insurance-based services as better data breaks down what were once dumb averages into well defined risk segments i.e. pensions, flooding, car cover etc.

Hands off our NHS, Fitbit

The sad news, however, is for those countries - like the UK - which don't have insurance-based health services, but instead have publicly-funded systems, paid through general taxation.

The NHS - free at the point of delivery etc etc - has no easy way to build such incentives (at least financial incentives) to encourage people to be more healthy and prove it with wearable sensors.

And let's get this straight. We're not talking about people running marathons here. A recent study suggested that 73 percent of people who used their mobiles to track basic fitness believed they become healthier.

Indeed, giving people more information about their health, generally allows them to change their behaviour for the better - that's even the case when we talk about crude anchoring advice such as 5 fruit and vegetables a day, 10,000 steps a day, or not drinking more than 21 units of alcohol a week.

The question is not whether people fulfil these goals, but it's that they do better than if they have no advice at all.

Instead, the big challenge for services like the NHS is that it will be extremely difficult to use wearable devices to directly incentivise individuals to get fitter and stay fitter for longer in the way insurance-based services will be able to do.

Two problems with the Quantifiable Self - quantification and self

Anyone who works with data knows what a messy situation it always is. All data - at least all useful data - has issues, ranging from how it’s recorded to how it should be processed. This is particularly the case with systems that rely on some human input. Self-reporting is notoriously hopeless, with research suggesting, for example, that the self reporting of ‘calories eaten’ is under reported by around 30 percent. Even using a device like my Fitbit Flex, you have to remember to switch it into sleep mode for it to automatically measure sleep (yes, I know you can manually add it later, but who does?). Similarly my Nike+ GPS watch can take anything up to a minute to lock onto the satellites it requires. Not to mention, randomly resetting itself to 2010 if it runs out of power, and the five or so times it never got a satellite signal during a 30 minute run. Margin of error These are slight errors of self and quantification, of course. More worrying - given we appear to be ready to hand over aspect of personal medicine to such devices (c.f. Apple’s HealthKit) - is the basic accuracy of the devices we’re using. A recent example. I went for a run using a Beurer fitness watch with heart monitor, and my Nike+ GPS watch. Both were started at the same time, but at the end of the run, the Nike+ watch listed 403 calories burnt, while the Beurer said 320. Assuming the Beurer+heart rate monitor is the more accurate of the two, that’s a 26 percent difference. Combining my two examples then, I could be over-exaggerating my calories burnt by 26 percent and under-exaggerating my calories in by 30 percent. That’s massive inaccuracy. Life and death? Yet, again, it could be said this is a trivial case. Where it does get concerning is when devices say they can accurately measure proper medical metrics such as cholesterol or blood sugar, or for some people even heart rate and calories (in and out). Not to mention when doctors are relying on people using the devices properly,: and that could be whether legitimate or illegitimate misuse c.f. the statistics about how many people complete their set treatment of antibiotics (22 percent of 16-24 year olds) But maybe I’m being too pessimistic. The Quantified Self can clearly produce great results, even with the current generation of devices. In most of these cases, though, it works because the motivation behind the Quantified Self is the self. Initial self awareness and self motivation enables quantification to positively feedback into a better self. Where we need to be concerned is in the cases of those where we expect quantification alone to drive self and change behaviour. 

What if not even an Apple wearable can shrink its lardy-assed fanboys?

So the Apple iWatch hype starts its rolling boil this week.

Rumours throughout the tech and business press are suggesting an October release of a device that will act as the hardware pivot for the announced HealthKit and Health app in iOS 8.

Perhaps more interesting are those people who are quoting a 3-4 million production run on the hardware; impressive if true given Pebble’s oft-quoted 400,000 install base.

Of course, what’s actually important is whether those likely millions of buyers actually use the device in anything like a proper manner.

For, while there is a percent of tech geeks who are also into health (hence platforms like Nike+ etc), the vast majority of Apple fanboys are pasty, lard arses.

So while they will be buying a large strap version of the iWatch, for how long will they be wearing - or more importantly - interacting with it when it starts telling them to stop eating cake and go for a run?

And that’s going to be the biggest challenge, especially for a likely highly fashionable Apple device, that will attract an audience that has no real interest in health, only in being seen with the latest Apple hardware.

Apple, HealthKit and the Walled Garden

Somewhere between a bang and a whimper, Apple announced its HealthKit platform.

This being revealed at the company's developer conference, Apple didn't talk about any consumer hardware. Instead its focus was to talk briefly about how the platform unifies multiple health metrics.

Combined with Apple's linked and overarching Health app, it looks like the baseline configuration won't offer anything different that the current generation of health trackers - tracking calories, sleep, heart rate etc - plus what looks like more comprehensive medical metrics, listed as ominously as Diagnostics. Lab Results and Medical ID.

Apple has said that HealthKit will be open to thirdparties, mentioning for example the Nike+ fitness platform. But the point of the platform is that within iOS, you'll be able to share whatever data you're monitoring with integrated apps, including links to professional healthcare providers.

US regional provider Mayo Clinic has been particularly keen to praise the move.

Perhaps the biggest unanswered question, however, is how open the data is, particularly in the longterm?

Obviously there's a privacy issue involved in terms of how medical data is shared and made available in the short-term, but equally, given Apple's proprietary nature (aka The Walled Garden), it seems unlikely it's adopting open industry standards, which as I've argued is a main longterm concern with this sort of fitness and health data.

And maybe, as important, it's not clear how Apple's iOS 8-centric approach will en/discourage the wider health and fitness app industry, which is something that will require support for Android and the web.

After all, we're not going to be using Apple hardware for the rest of our lives. 

Why smart watch market share estimates remain meaningless hokum

According to market intelligence outfit Strategy Analytics, the smart watch market is exploding.

It reckons global shipments were up 250 percent year-on-year in Q1 2014 to over 700,000 units.

The key driver of this growth was Samsung, which shipped 500,000 units, taking an estimated 71 percent market share.

What tosh...

Whether the numbers are correct or not - and the fact these are units shipped not sold is a clue - it's pretty clear Samsung is not going to be the market leader on this sort of scale.

After all, back in 2013, rival market intelligence outfit Canalyst estimated that Samsung had a 54 percent market share but that was when it had shipped lots of Galaxy Gear smartphones, many of which were subsequently returned to retailers because it was a rubbish product.

But did Canalyst track those returns? Did it heck.

Of course, the more vital issue with Samsung smart watches is they only work with Samsung phones. Sure, that's a big market but it also demonstrates that Samsung doesn't get the potential of smart watches in the way that Pebble (which supports iOS and Android phone) does - and I'm not just saying that because I'm a Pebbler.

But, perhaps even more importantly, the smart watch market is so nascent at the moment that until we've had a couple of quarters of Android Wear hardware shipping (and more importantly being sold and worn by real people), there's little point even discussing market share percentages.

Still, if you have $6,999 burning a hole in your pocket, feel free to buy Strategy Analytics' no doubt awesome 6-page report. 

LG gets all operatic about its G Watch

LG seems to be very confident about its G Watch. It's one of the many smart watches that's built using Google's Android Wear wearables platform.

I'm not sure the music appeals to the target audience, though.

Power problems

While I'm excited by the idea of 24/7 wearables, my experience over the past year has not been great.

My Jawbone Up wasn't robust enough to last 3 months, while I lost my Fitbit One within a month. My Fitbit Flex has done better than both, but now requires some card to be jammed into its proprietary charging dock to charge.

What is it with wearable makers and proprietary charging docks/cables?

In other 'bad battery' news, I've been trying out the Moves smartphone software, which was recently purchased by Facebook.

It works okay, but is a total battery drain; it's usually the largest singler battery user on my Nexus 5 at around 30 percent, and - of course - I don't carry my phone with me much either, so it's not even tracking most of my movement. 

Amazon is getting into wearables, but how deep?

With rumours suggesting Amazon is about to launch its own phone, maybe I should start a rumour about the Amazon wearable.

After all, the company has just launched a dedicated storefront for the category.

Called the Wearable Technology store, this is an one-stop shop for trackers, smart watches, health products and wearable cameras. The store launches with FitBit and Samsung Gear as highlighted products, also including content from Gizmodo and to-be-released products like lifestyle camera Narrative. 

Yet as we've seen over the years, Amazon has launched its own e-reader, its tablet and its TV streaming box. And now the phone seems likely. 

The reason in all these cases is Amazon wants to keep its best customers within its own digital world: each device is a vertical silo whereby customers can only buy Amazon content or content that's distributed through Amazon. 

And wearables fit right into this. Wearing an Amazon tracker, the store's recommendation engine could tell you when you need to replace your running shoes (after 500 km), or the best sleeping pills to help with that annoying insomnia.  

So forget delivery drones. You'll soon be wearing Bezos on your wrist. 

After some calculations, I still don't like NikeFuel

I'm probably starting to obsess, but I've been thinking more about NikeFuel.

Obviously, it has to based on something:  it's not totally made up. My point is that trying to come up with a wide measure of physical activity is a thankless, nigh-on impossible task. Which is why I think NikeFuel will fail to replace the calorie as a better measure.

Still, I wanted to dig down into it, so did some quick calculations.

I've simply analysed my own generation of NikeFuel over the past three years, measuring it against calories burned. Both of these metrics have been generated by my Nike+ TomTom GPS running watch so should be consistent across the period.

Interesting, the activity associated with burning 1 calorie has changed from 2.58 NikeFuel units in 2012, to 3.18 NikeFuel units in 2014; an increase of 19 percent.

However, my average running pace per km has also changed, so I also did a quick calculation to see if this was the reason. But even if we assume the watch isn't increasing the number of calories burned due to a faster pace at all (an extreme assumption), the improvement in my average running pace would only account for around 50 percent of the change in the conversion been a calorie and a NikeFuel unit.

My skepticism about NikeFuel continues...

Facebook buys Moves in personal activity data move

Depending on your point of view, Facebook's acquisition of Moves either underlines the wider importance of the personal tracking market, or blows more air up the rear of an already over inflated bubble.

The company behind Moves is Helsinki-based Protogeo, and according to general concensus, the deal wasn't measured in the billions of an Oculus Rift, Instagram or WhatsApp.

Perhaps what's most interesting is that Moves isn't a hardware solution. To that extent, it's just another iOS/Android app, which uses motion and location data to generate a daily report, including Foursquare-style check-ins.

Indeed, it actively sells itself on being better than hardware gadgets like Fitbit, FuelBand (it doesn't handle sleep, though) or dedicated sports apps like Runkeeper, which is odd, because it only works if you take your phone with you everywhere you go; something we're likely do in terms of commute and general leisure activity but often not in terms of dedicated sports activity, although you can manually enter gym sessions etc.

As for the reason for the Facebook deal, it's hard to tell.

Protogeo says it will be business as usual; notably stating we have no plans to "commingle data with Facebook".

But you have to expect Moves-type functionality to make its way into Facebook, while further extending that software platform into Facebook-branded hardware could be a logical next, next step.

Nike’s attempt to roll NikeFuel as a platform play is smart but doomed

In some ways, it’s no surprise that Nike is refocusing away from fitness/wearable hardware to software. Despite the Nike+ brand, the FuelBand tracking bracelet (below) hasn’t found a strong position in the market, while the Nike+ TomTom GPS running watch - which I’ve happily used over the past 2 years - is too expensive compared to the competition.

According to Cnet, the company's decision sees around 70 staff of the 200-strong Nike Digital Sport being laid-off. Interestingly, though, Nike says it will keep supporting and selling the current FuelBand SE, as well as improving its app.

Given the relative small savings the company will be making, and the short/medium-term decision to remain in the market, this clearly is more a strategic than a ‘religious’ move. Fitness hardware will remain a main driver in the wearable category, but Nike has understood that it doesn’t really get hardware innovation.

Instead, it’s hoping thirdparty companies will adopt the NikeFuel training metric; something it’s supporting with its Fuel Lab testing space.

Of course, with the likes of Apple (a big Nike support in iOS) and Google, not to mention every phone maker, currently looking to get into wearables, getting out of the hardware market enables Nike to get its brand into the hardware of multiple vendors.

In that sense, it is a getting out of a highly competitive market in which it is failing in the hope of making more revenue and/or brand kudos with a co-operative platform play.

Sadly, then, the bigger issue for Nike is the entire NikeFuel concept - its proprietary measurement of training - which is entirely vacuous.