::: nBlog :::
During 2014 we saw many introductions of ‘smart wearables™’, from sports shirts to different kinds of fitness bracelets. However, according to early studies, people tend to use these gadgets, or at least their ‘smart’ side, only for some 3-6 months before forgetting about them.
From our spime perspective, the reason for this lack of continued interest and thus non-market creation is simple: Most of these things were created with legacy product development concepts, with mass production and physical goods delivery as primary drivers. It worked before, what’s wrong now?
The killer wearable will be something that evolves with you, starting with mass customization (also of the physical side) and focus on the cognitive service behind it. My Socks-as-a-Service model is a start, but already now customers expect more customized and friendly service, with continuous attention from the service provider.
With spime platforms like ours, new services can be created quickly around existing physical products and materials. Consider one of the basic needs during cold Finnish winter: Hand-warming service, traditionally known as gloves. These have been quite similar for the last ten thousand years.
People have quite different perimeter blood circulations, so there’s an obvious need for many different levels of warming. With sensors worth of few cents, gloves could report their inside and outside temperature to their corresponding spime, which in turn would record data about customer’s environment. In other words, gloves would exist more in a digital form, as a cognitive, personal knowledge base of the well-being of your hands. The service provider can then send out incrementally improved (physical) gloves or add-ons, whenever old ones wear out or don’t provide proper warming. Iterative health analysis based on blood circulation changes during glove usage can also be easily done, in addition to a wealth of other new and innovative services.
In 2015, not only in wearables but with the Internet-of-Things in general, it’ll all be about creating and fostering customer relationships, as in the spime world they’ll be real time, and may last for a lifetime.
I, together with the BaseN team wish you a very prosperous year 2015.
//Pasi
