Consumer Discretionary

<p><span data-contrast="auto">The wearable devices market is expected to grow rapidly in the next few years, however there are some barriers facing the growth of the market.</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span data-contrast="auto">Wearables (also known as wearable technology, wearable devices or just wearables) are technology that is worn on the body, which includes watches and other devices. These can come in forms like smartwatches and fitness trackers. Wearables are not a very new concept but wearable devices are still evolving.</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span data-contrast="auto">Wearable devices are the next big thing. While this is not very new, wearables that work in healthcare is still new to many. In healthcare and related fields wearables are used to track the health data of patients to improve care and make better decisions for treatments.</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span data-contrast="auto">Wearable fitness gadgets have been around for a few years, but most have been designed to track basic health signals through sensors such as heart rate and steps walked. The emergence of wearables in healthcare is enabling patients with chronic conditions and clinicians to more closely monitor a range of health issues, and hopefully improve patient&rsquo;s lives.</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}">&nbsp;</span></p><p aria-level="3"><strong><span data-contrast="none">Statement of the Problem of Wearable Devices</span></strong><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559738&quot;:40,&quot;335559739&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}">&nbsp;</span></p><p aria-level="3"><span data-contrast="auto">The problem of wearable technology is far from being solved. A number of barriers have been identified for the market and a range of solutions proposed to overcome them. The following are the top 5 impediments of wearable devices:</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}">&nbsp;</span></p><ol><li><span data-contrast="auto">Interoperability</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}">&nbsp;</span></li><li><span data-contrast="auto">Battery Issues</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}">&nbsp;</span></li><li><span data-contrast="auto">Uncomfortable or Bulky</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}">&nbsp;</span></li><li><span data-contrast="auto">Lack of Personalization</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}">&nbsp;</span></li><li><span data-contrast="auto">Lack of Support (Direction)</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}">&nbsp;</span></li></ol><p><span data-contrast="auto">To determine the wearable device technology barriers, we used a variety of sources, including websites, blog posts and press articles. We also surveyed a subset of the various wearables product categories by asking users about their &ldquo;most common&rdquo; concerns. We did not use any third-party surveys to measure the size of the market for wearable devices.</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span data-contrast="auto">We did not include any products or services that were not worn as a secondary accessory to a device like a smartwatch. Many people have the desire to have more control over their data, but many don&rsquo;t want &ldquo;naked&rdquo; data for security reasons, so we made sure that most products included privacy controls on personal information (such as credit card numbers) and data collection was limited to what is necessary for your daily activities.</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}">&nbsp;</span></p><p aria-level="3"><strong><span data-contrast="none">Barrier 1 of Wearable Devices: Interoperability</span></strong><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559738&quot;:40,&quot;335559739&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}">&nbsp;</span></p><p aria-level="3"><span data-contrast="auto">Interoperability is always an extremely difficult bottleneck. We need to acquire the health data, extracting it from different places and systems. It is crucial that the systems are able to connect and &ldquo;talk&rdquo; to each other to facilitate the transactional operation of exchange data sets in this case, health data. Also often, it is registered that after the data is exchanged, some discrepancies and fluctuations occur which can painfully compromise the overall quality of purpose of having good quality data.</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span data-contrast="auto">Interoperability is an exchange of health data between different systems and healthcare providers. In the future, we envision that interoperability works seamlessly, but before this becomes reality there needs to be a lot more effort in sharing health data.</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}">&nbsp;</span></p><p aria-level="3"><strong><span data-contrast="none">Barrier 2 of Wearable Devices: Battery Issues</span></strong><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559738&quot;:40,&quot;335559739&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span data-contrast="auto">It is registered that battery limitations are one of the main challenges with regard to Wearables Medical Devices. On average we can expect 4 or 5 full days of battery capacity in the main wearables in the marketplace. It is also possible that battery capacity can be increase with lower usage of the device, however for example clinical studies in the ideal world we need to measure and monitor a patient condition for continuously for several weeks, which makes very challenging to overcome and sometimes defeats the study in the first place...</span><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span data-ccp-props="{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}">&nbsp;</span></p>