Panic/SOS button tops wearables wish list

NEW DELHI, INDIA: In the new Ericsson ConsumerLab report, six in 10 smartphone users state that wearables have uses beyond health and wellness. Devices related to personal safety and security, such as panic buttons and personal locators, attract most interest:

The report captures the opinions of 5,000 smartphone users (of which 2,500 are wearable users) in Brazil, China, South Korea, the UK and the US, representing the views of 280 million smartphone users globally.

Top five most-wanted wearables across five markets surveyed are:

1. Panic/SOS button (32%)

2. Smartwatch (28%)

3. Wearable Location Tracker (27%)

4. Identity Authenticator (25%)

5. Wearable Water Purifier (24%)

Although, the ownership of wearables among smartphone users in the surveyed markets has doubled in the past year, but it will take at least another year for the current generation of wearables to go mainstream.

A more diverse set of wearables, such as personal safety devices and smart garments, will go mainstream beyond 2020 - but when they do, a booming market can be expected. One in three smartphone users believe they will use at least five connected wearables beyond 2020, says the report.

Here are some other interesting insights from the study:

Wearables to turn smartphones into just screens?

The integration of smartphones into every aspect of daily life makes it hard to envisage a future without them. As wearables get smarter and more independent in terms of factors such as connectivity, the smartphone screen may become less significant.

Jasmeet Singh Sethi, Consumer Insight Expert, Ericsson ConsumerLab, says: "Early signs of detachment from smartphones are visible today with 40 percent of today's smartwatch users already interacting less with their smartphones."

Wearables bringing people into IoT

Wearable technology will also accelerate the convergence of the digital and human worlds, by bringing people into the (IoT). While consumers are confident that wearable technology will help them interact with objects in their surroundings, they also say that this technology may not necessarily be devices.

Sing Sethi says: "Although consumers show greatest interest in devices related to safety, we also see an openness to wearable technology further away from today's generation. In five years' time, walking around with an ingestible sensor, which tracks your body temperature and adjusts the thermostat setting automatically once you arrive home, may be a reality."