(Image Credit: Pebble)
After rumours last week, the acquisition of Pebble's assets by Fitbit has been finalised. We've reached out to Fitbit for more information on how much Pebble ended up being sold for in the end, but it's sure to be less than Citizen's $740...
(c)iStock.com/LDProd
The latest research note from analyst firm Gartner argues that wearables need to be more useful and dropout is a ‘serious problem’ for the industry.
The 2016 Gartner Personal Technologies Study showed that the abandonment rate of smartwatches is 29% and 30% for fitness trackers as people do not find them useful, they get bored of them or they break.
Angela McIntyre, research director at Gartner said: “Dropout from device usage is a serious problem for the industry. The...
(Image Credit: iStockPhoto/Mlenny)
Pebble was the original Kickstarter success story and remains today as one of the most-funded campaigns in the crowdfunding platform's history. The device helped to propel wearables forward, and subsequent updates have kept the company's devices sharing the main stage with players such as Apple and Samsung.
Last year, watch manufacturer Citizen offered to buy Pebble for a whopping...
(Image Credit: iStockPhoto/theasis)
Google is preparing to bring payment support to its stagnating Android Wear platform, according to data mined by Android Police in Play Services 10. In the data, text strings including "Try holding...
(Image Credit: iStockPhoto/knape)
Researchers from Texas A&M University have solved the battery life problem of wearables through utilising the body's natural heat. The first watch to make use of such technology is now even being crowdfunded on Indiegogo.
An often cited problem with today's wearables is battery life...
(c)iStock.com/Mutlu Kurtbas
If there’s one thing analyst companies like to do, it’s disagree with each other. Gartner and IDC recently had slightly different paths over the future role of the CIO – and now Canalys is disagreeing with IDC over wearable shipments.
According to a note issued at the end of last week, Canalys argued that Apple shipped 2.8 million smartwatches in the third quarter, making a specific point that shipments compared favourably “despite reports to the...
(Image Credit: Microsoft)
During the Wall Street Street Journal's WSJD Live conference, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said there was "no question" the company missed its opportunity when it came to mobile. "We clearly missed the mobile phone, there's no question," Nadella said. "Our goal now is to make sure we grow new categories."
The peak of the mobile...
(c)iStock.com/4774344sean
It had been prophesised, but now the chickens have truly come home to roost: latest figures from IDC show the smartwatch market has declined by 51.6% year over year.
The figures, released as part of IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker, showed 2.7 million units shipped globally in Q316, down from 5.6 million this time last year.
Apple remains top of the tree, although this does not tell the full story, with the Cupertino giant suffering almost the bulk of the...
Picture credit: Dipitr/YouTube
Dipitr Technologies has launched O'We, the first smartwatch that aims to monitor sun exposure. The fitness watch is currently available for pre-order at an early-bird discount of 40%.
The new smartwatch has a feature called SunTrack that tracks sun exposure, and will soon launch on the crowdfunding website Kickstarter. Apart from the sun exposure monitor, the watch has other fitness features including measurements of daily...
(c)iStock.com/pixedeli
The latest Kantar Worldpanel ComTech data on wearable device usage, as of July 2016, argues that while Apple still leads in smartwatch sales, overall sector growth is slow.
15.2% of US consumers own a smartwatch or fitness band, with the EU4 (France, Germany, Italy, UK), with an 8.1% penetration. Excluding fitness bands, adoption of smartwatches remains slow with 3.2% in EU4 and 4.7% in the US.
In the quarter ended July 2016, 47% of total wearable sales in the US were in the smartwatch...
