(c)iStock.com/LDProd

A survey by IT software company Ipswitch, polling 288 American IT professionals, provides insight on challenges and the extent of wearable penetration.

Consumer adoption of wearables is on the rise and the nature of the technology and associated benefits necessitates use throughout the day, leading to concerns for IT professionals at the workplace. Close to 53% of the respondents reported employees with wearables utilising the company Wi-Fi.

As a result, 36% spoke of decreased network bandwidth and 45% complained of additional workload to support more devices. However, the foremost concern was security breaches, with 61% of those surveyed raising this issue. Only 24% of the respondents said they had a policy to manage wearables in place, with 66% reporting the lack of a policy. Additionally, 15% said their organisations provide employees with wearables that connect to the network.

Smart watches like Apple Watch were the most popular (46%) at the workplace, followed closely by fitness bands such as Fitbit (42%). Health monitoring devices like Qardioarm (17%) were in third place. The last category of wearables reported were recording/photography gear (e.g. headsets) at 13.5%.

 

Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and sharing their IoT use-cases? Attend the IoT Tech Expo World Series events with upcoming shows in Silicon Valley, London and Amsterdam to learn more.

The show is co-located with the AI & Big Data Expo, Cyber Security & Cloud Expo and Blockchain Expo so you can explore the entire ecosystem in one place.