Picture credit: Fitbit

The latest figures from IDC show Fitbit continues to lead the way in global wearable device sales, but Apple slides alarmingly down the table.

According to the most recent Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker analysis, Fitbit sold 5.3 million units in Q316, up from 4.8m this time last year, while the company’s overall market share has risen to 23.0% from 2.14% in Q315.

This rise can partly be attributed to Apple’s relative demise. With 3.9m units shipped in the third...

(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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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A three year research report from IDTechEx estimates that the global wearable technology market will be worth over $30 billion in 2016. The report says that the market will grow in three stages: 9% annually to over $40 billion in 2018, but then accelerating to 23% through to over $100 billion by 2023, before slowing to 10% to reach over $150 billion by 2026.

The report details IDTechEx's coverage of the wearable technology ecosystem, which looks at the industry from many different...

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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...

Picture credit: Amazfit

US-based wearable technology company Amazfit has introduced the new Amazfit Arc, a new heart rate, activity and sleep tracker that can follow a user’s progress in real-time. The Amazfit Arc features a scratch-resistant OLED touchscreen and a 20-day battery life for an introductory price of $49.99.

The Arc joins the recently announced, ceramic-based Moonbeam and Equator wearables by the company, which are the slimmest and most lightweight activity trackers on the market today. All...

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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...

Picture credit: BSX Technologies

BSX Technologies has announced that the Kickstarter campaign for its LVL wearable device has surpassed $1 million in funding with an original goal of $50,000, putting it in the top 0.06% of the crowd-funding site’s initiatives.

Integrated with smart sensor and patented red light technology, LVL can monitor the user’s present hydration levels and then recommends the exact volume needed to achieve optimal hydration. The device also tracks heart rate, sleep quality,...

Picture credit: Mio Global

Canada-based Mio Global, a company which provides wearable health technologies, has announced $15 million in funding led by Hydra Ventures with participation from private investors.

The company is seeking to impact the global health scenario with its new Personal Activity Intelligence (PAI) personal health metric and Mio SLICE wrist-based fitness tracker.

PAI uses heart rate to track the body’s response to all types of physical activity while providing actionable and...

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Fitness trackers have the ability to save $1000 per employee based on the results of a study conducted by Springbuk. 

The study aimed to calculate the actual return investment of equipping staff with fitness trackers as part of their health and wellness programs, the findings offer a glimpse into how the wearables can not only improve the health of employees...

You've probably heard of TomTom, but the likelihood is you remember them for some of the best in-car satellite navigation systems. The rise of smartphone apps with connected features and constant updates has muscled in on TomTom's once large market and driven the company to explore more future-proof efforts. 

TomTom believes it has something to offer the developing wearable market and has launched its own fitness band in the form of the TomTom Touch. In a market being flooded with...

Picture credit: Vuzix

US-based Vuzix-owned next generation M300 Smart Glasses has been awarded the Enterprise Wearable Device of the Year by Compass Intelligence, a market analytics and consulting firm that specializes in metrics-driven market intelligence, advisory, marketing support, and insights for the mobile, IoT, and high-tech industries.

The Vuzix M300 is designed to address customer feedback from more than two years of productive use of the earlier M100 Smart Glasses. Its advanced ergonomic design and...

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A new report from ABI Research predicts that the global wearable device shipments will increase from 202 million in 2016 to more than 501 million by 2021.

Analysts say that 17% of the shipments are attributed to enterprise end users in 2016, which will see the segment to nearly double at a CAGR of 35% by the end of the forecast period. It is also estimated that more than 16 million wearables – from activity trackers to healthcare monitors and from 3D motion trackers to...

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Not all of us have diet fitness-related degrees, and so unless we invest significant amounts for those which do, we simply move from machine-to-machine hoping for a beach-ready body at some point before we meet our fate. 

Research from TomTom Sports has revealed that most Brits struggle when it comes to maintaining a healthy body; with 83 percent admitting they...

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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...

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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...

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A new wearable device and a machine learning platform developed by Teva Pharmaceuticals and Intel Corporation is said to analyse and measure the development of Huntington’s disease (HD) that will help improve treatment evaluation.

Intel’s specialty in analytics and algorithm development for movement detection will melded with Teva’s specialty and deep knowledge in HD treatment and research, the companies claim.

In order to enhance and better understand the...

(Image Credit: Microsoft) 

Despite rumours of the demise of the Microsoft Band, the original wearable is being employed to aid epilepsy sufferers in predicting upcoming seizures and help to ensure their safety.

A new program called MyCareCentric is being used for the pioneering epilepsy research developed by a range of partners including Microsoft, the Epilepsy Care Alliance, the University of Kent in the U.K., Shearwater...