What is limiting the development of the wearable device industry? If these problems are not solved, the wearable device will still be difficult to achieve large growth in the future, and may even become a secondary entry for data collection.
Wearable devices are not growing enough
According to the latest 2018 Wearable Sensor Industry Technology Report published by the China Research Institute, since 2016, global wearable device shipments and revenues have grown at an annual rate of 13%, with revenue growth. The scale has reached nearly 35 billion US dollars / year.
This is mainly due to the continuous development of major manufacturers, the growing variety of wearable devices, the maturity of product technology, the continuous improvement of user experience and the continuous decline in product prices. These factors are attracting consumers to constantly update and purchase new products. Wearable device.
However, it is worth noting that the growth rate of the wearable device market has decreased slightly compared with the previous five years, and the subsequent development momentum is a bottleneck.
This development bottleneck is mainly reflected in the following aspects:
First, from the global wearable device brand shipments. Although the top five institutions accounted for more than 50% of the market share of the trend has not changed. But compared with 2015, in addition to Xiaomi and Samsung, Apple, Fitbit and other manufacturers The market share has dropped slightly.
Secondly, the overall investment fever of the wearable industry has declined. According to data released by the China Research Institute, from 2015 to 2017, the number of investment and financing in the wearable industry has dropped from 145 to 77, a drop of 46%. The amount also dropped from 4.73 billion yuan to 3.12 billion yuan, a drop of 34%.
So what is the crux of the bottleneck in the wearable market?
What is the crux of the development of the wearable market?
From the beginning of the birthable device, it appeared as an accessory device of the smart phone. Although the functions after the change are constantly changing, for smart bracelets and smart watches, many functions are still inseparable from the support of mobile phones, even Part of the function is the expansion of smartphones.
This makes the wearable device itself a non-critical consumer electronics product, especially for AR/VR devices.
According to the research report of the Research Institute, the market prospects of wearable devices are inseparable from the consumers' willingness to use. For non-rapid wearable devices, the convenience and functionality of products have become the main factors determining consumption. factor.
Since consumers are more likely to wear wearable devices related to wrists, arms, fingers, head and waist, we found that in 2016, the market share of global wearable device segment products was basically the same as that of consumers. The willingness to wear is consistent. This trend will not change in the future.
According to Gartner's forecast, smart watches and smart bracelets will still occupy a large market share in 2021, and the revenue and shipment share of head-mounted displays will increase, following the smart watches.
This also shows that how to improve the convenience and functionality of wearable devices will be the key to determining the future market development of the wearable device market. This also puts forward the development of wearable devices and related technologies. High requirements, especially in the core component of the wearable device – the sensor.
Sensors and wearable devices complement each other
Depending on the product, the sensor plays a different role in the wearable device. However, it is undeniable that the function and performance of the wearable device are inseparable from the support of the sensor core technology.
In general, the sensor's high integration and diversified measurement can integrate more monitoring functions for wearable devices; new material development and application of sensors, development of flexible wearable sensors can improve the wearability of wearable devices; Reduced power consumption can also improve the endurance of wearable devices.
It can be said that the convenience and functionality that we mentioned before in the development of the wearable market are inextricably linked with the core components of the sensor.
Therefore, the report of the China Research Institute pointed out that sensors can bring new interactions to wearable devices, innovative and interesting applications, better user experience, sensor volume, quality, power consumption, reliability, stability, etc. Wearable device user experience, wear comfort and power consumption have a very important impact. Even human-computer interaction experience, intelligent sensing technology, flexible electronic technology, etc. are inseparable from the development of sensing technology.
On the other hand, wearable devices also place higher demands on the development of sensors.
In terms of the convenience required by wearable devices, this requirement puts higher demands on the signal acquisition and chip fusion of the sensors in the device, especially in terms of performance, power consumption, volume and solution integrity. The equipment is very different and the overall requirements are more demanding.
At present, the potential development direction of sensor-sensing devices for sensors mainly has the following requirements:
First of all, highly integrated and diversified measurement. The increasing functionality of wearable devices requires the integration of more sensors, but the wearable devices are limited in size. How do you increase the sensor while keeping the volume constant? This requires sensors. Highly integrated for more detail.
Secondly, new materials and flexible wearable sensors. Because of the human body structure, how to better fit the human body to the human body is also a future exploration. Realize the high resolution, high sensitivity and fastness of flexible wearable electronic sensors. Response, low cost manufacturing and complex signal detection remains a big challenge.
Third, reduce sensor power consumption and increase endurance. Improve product endurance and low-energy product development. The key technologies are mainly to improve battery energy density and environmental energy acquisition. It seems that the most likely solution is still high energy density. Rechargeable electrochemical cell, which will make the sensor have a long standby and use time under the premise of minimizing the volume. Wireless charging is hopeful to become the next reliable source of energy. However, a new breakthrough in battery technology Previously, wearable devices could only increase the battery life of the device by selecting a backup battery, reducing the power consumption of the sensor.
Finally, the future development of the wearable device industry requires the stimulation of new application points. Users have put forward new requirements for the deep information mining function of products, and the demand for wearable biosensors has gradually increased. Wearable biosensors are already in medicine. There are important applications, but strictly speaking they have not yet reached the level of ideal automatic detection. It is foreseeable that in the next few years, consumer devices will integrate a wider range of biosensors, such as measuring blood oxygen, blood pressure and blood sugar. Horizontal spectral sensors, as well as skin resistance sensor sensors that determine sweat levels and pH values.
It is not difficult to see that the wearable device market and the sensor market are two complementary markets. The current development of the wearable device market has encountered bottlenecks, and it is urgent to seek breakthroughs in convenience and functionality. This breakthrough requires sensor support. Realization. While the sensor market is gradually saturated in the traditional sensor market, the wearable market will become the next new growth point.
In the future, as wearable devices move toward multi-functional integration, sensors will have tremendous opportunities in the market for high integration, low power consumption, flexible wearable sensors, and biosensors.