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Here’s an interesting statistic in the latest survey from IEEE – almost one in 10 consumers believe wearable technology will become redundant or unnecessary in the coming year.

The poll, of more than 2,000 consumers, found digital devices and digital cameras to be the most unnecessary piece of tech this year (15%), with e-readers (9%) in second place. On the other side, 43% of respondents said drones would be the most influential in 2016. Smartphones (38%) and 3D printing (31%) took second and third place, while technologies such as virtual reality, dating apps, robots, and human tech implants also gained a positive response.

Kevin Curran, IEEE Senior Member and Reader in Computer Science at University of Ulster, said: “It is no coincidence that the three technologies predicted to become redundant result from the success of one – the smartphone. It is the defacto way to listen to music and read ebooks; it’s taken over the digital camera market and many believe it will also bring about the demise of the tablet and PC.

“With sensors now being added to phones, the future for wearables and scanners could be questionable too. Strangely, one of the smartphone uses which is declining is making phone calls,” he added.

When held against the 2014 survey, smartphones and 3D printing remained among the highly influential technologies as drones took the place of tablets in the top three. Home automation (3% increase), electric cars (3% increase), and wearables (4% increase) got the nod from consumers as influential technologies while fewer people mentioned tablets (11% decrease), laptops (8% decrease) and e-readers (8% decrease). Home automation (20%), electric cars (19%) and 3D printing (17%) were among the technologies that consumers look most forward to for a purchase.

 

 

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