The future is becoming Wearable

In the last spot tv (at least the italian one), Apple lets movie ending with “It’s here”, referring that a new era is coming. I’m talking about the Apple Whatch spot tv. While, when I say a new era I’m talking about the era of Wearable tech, a second “ubiquity” revolution after the Mobile one, about 10 years ago.

A market that by the year 2020 according to Juniper Research will worth $80 billion.

We are still at the first step of this new era, within which people are thinking that the wearables tech concern just fitness tracking and health monitoring, but some example are strongly carrying out new opportunity for governments, banks and businesses.

Starting from early of adoption, Gartner Analysts, Jason Wong and Tracy Tsai, predict “by 2018, more than 500 million people will use voice commands to interact with personal and home devices on a daily basis”, unveiling the people’s availability to adopt new ways, more convenient and immediate, of interaction with devices, context and people (“Predicts 2015: Product Managers Have New Tools to Reinvigorate Consumer Engagement”).

In the same research Gartner predict that by 2018, 200 million people will use wearable devices that measure their heart rates.

As I wrote in a previous post on LinkedIn, Internet of Things (IoT), from eye-wear to cars and smartwatches, is spreading out fast in our life.

Connecting various types of electronic devices together for a great experience in the day-to day activities is stated to be the ultimate objective of IOT. So the commerce applications and ability to pay using such devices need to consider this ongoing evolution too? Wearables will allow people make payments even easier with NFC or simple one click payment online.

Apple and Barclaycard are pitching their products, the smartwatch and the bPay wristband, as a convenient way to make payments. Users just have to lean over to make a payment as opposed to take out a card from their wallet or get out the smartphone.

While Google and Samsung are focusing on smartphones with the upcoming Android Pay and Samsung Pay, Apple and Barclaycard know the future is integrating payments with wearables that can be used for many things.

That’s why Barclaycard provides to his customers a bPay Wearable series, that includes in addiction of wristband, a fob to attach the keys and an NFC sticker to attach to phone.

Sony, instead, has worked last year by the side with FeliCa (45 million Android smartphones in Japan have a FeliCa chip) contactless card technology to add contactless payments to wearables with a new chip.

The company is designing a low-power chip that could be used in wearables such as smartwatches and smart bands, giving them contactless e-money or transit functions or access to restricted areas.

Also, according to Computerworld, Fitness-band maker Jawbone and American Express plan to allow cardholders to buy goods using a future fitness band equipped with NFC.

In short, the Wearables are creating entirely new industries and opportunities for billions of people to benefit.

In particular in the payment industry, the Wearables soon are going to be part of the future of banking, within aim to create a more efficient method of interaction and authentication for account holders.

In conclusion, if it is true that nowadays we are living in the era of mobile wallet (see more) It’s not wrong to say that Wearables are beginning to be what ‘the second generation of Mobile’ was in the late 2000 and what ‘a card’ was in the 80’s.