Despite a recent influx of new smartwatches and fitness trackers, a leading manufacturer has suggested that currently, “wearables are not that wearable.”
With the wearables market still very much in its infancy, wearables and fitness tracking specialist MisFit has claimed that many current devices have been designed around features rather that overall fit and function.
Expanding on his bold claim, Vu added: “Most current wearables are made of plastic and people don’t like to wear plastic, they like to wear fur and leather, gold and precious stones and what not.
“I’m not saying that function isn’t important, it is, it obviously has to do something, but if people don’t really like wearing it, it isn’t going to last a long time.”
Looking to how wearables are going to adapt and improve moving forward, Vu has suggested that devices will move away from being wrist-locked, giving users the option to wear them at various points on their body, such as hip or on a necklace.
“More companies will adopt wearables that can be worn in a number of locations on the body,” he told us. “This is important because it gives the user a choice rather than limiting what they can do.
“Wearables are going to be tailored more to the design needs of human beings than around what is possible with engineering.”
With the wearable MisFit Shine fitness tracker having launched last year, Vu has suggested that research for the product revealed that the wrist wasn’t the ideal location for a wearable product.
“We found that a lot of people, women in particular, don’t want to wear anything on their wrists,” he said. “Some people have watches already and they don’t want to wear anything else.
“We decided to take a very design-centred approach to wearables. We decided to make something that people would wear first and foremost and then let’s make it functional.”
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
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We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
