Comparing Apple Watches and Oranges: Looking Past Shiny Gadgets to Find Real Opportunities in Wearables

With high profile product releases, like the Apple Watch, wearable electronics are riding the hype wave. However, most current devices do little more than push text messages or count steps and with high-profile failures, like Google Glass, the future of wearables remains an open question. Currently, wearable developers primarily focus on consumer applications, but there is also much promise as they push into new areas like healthcare and industry. These disparate wearable electronics markets come with vastly different value propositions and use cases, from offering customized nutrition and hydration information, to enabling patients to be evaluated remotely, to increasing factory efficiency and safety. However, those looking to profit from wearables will need to pull together a complex ecosystem including hardware, analytics, regulators, insurance providers, and data management, all while managing privacy concerns, data security, and new business models.