Fitbit’s recent announcement has many people questioning the viability of the wearables market, but what we’re seeing is NOT the beginning of the end of the wearables market. Instead, what we’re seeing is the end of the beginning phase of the wearables market.
 
The beginning phase of the wearables market was focused on activity tracking and getting people to pay more attention to how much or how little they moved. One analogy to think of is with mobile phones – in many ways wearables are still at the flip phone stage of its market evolution. The smart phone of wearables has not hit the market yet.
 
The early phase of the wearables market brought a great deal of attention to using technology worn on the body to track our progress on simple health metrics. These initial metrics (steps, calories burned, etc) are interesting but haven’t provided people a complete picture of their overall personal health and have not provided guidance and direction on how to improve.
 
The next phase of the wearables market is focused on connecting the dots between fitness and health. “The promise of a healthier life remains the biggest reason for wearables use,” remarked research author James Moar, Juniper Research. “The ability to collect more and better data on consumers, coupled with advances in artificial intelligence, will allow these devices to provide tailored advice, and have a much clearer impact on consumers’ lives in future.”
 
You’re starting to see the early signs of this next phase of wearables now, with recent reports from Stanford Medicine of wearable devices detecting illness. The next generation of wearables are beginning to incorporate more advanced health metrics like heart rate variability and blood pressure, which begins to provide a more insightful view into a person’s health over time. In fact, in some areas, advancements in consumer biometric technology is outpacing medical device innovation. You’ll continue to see advancements in combining medical-grade metrics in wearable devices that will open up new insights and capabilities far beyond the data collected during the average persons’ annual visit to the doctor.


As VP of Marketing, Ryan leads global marketing for Valencell and is responsible for all areas of marketing strategy and execution. Prior to Valencell, Ryan led marketing and enterprise engagement at 6fusion, rapidly growing market awareness and adoption of an innovative approach to standardizing the economic measurement of IT infrastructure. At GXS, Ryan led product marketing and product management for GXS Managed Services, helping grow the business from $40 million to $150 million in seven years. Ryan holds a bachelor of arts from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from the University of Maryland.
 
Valencell develops performance biometric sensor technology and licenses this patent-protected technology to consumer electronics manufacturers, wearable and hearable device makers, sports and fitness brands, medical device makers, and gaming companies for integration into their products. Valencell’s PerformTek® biometric sensor technology employs active signal characterization, the process of segmenting raw signal data from biometric sensors into biological, motion, and environmental signals and noise. Valencell has invested years into the research and development of its PerformTek sensor technology, protected by dozens of granted patents and independently validated by the Duke Center for Living, North Carolina State University, the Human Performance Laboratory and a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine.