The wearable tech space is booming. According to a new report from Canalys, 1.6 million wrist-worn wearables shipped in the second half of 2013 and it’s expected that over 17 million wearable bands will ship this year, growing to 23 million in 2015.
To keep tabs on the fast-growing wearable space, Vancouver’s Vandrico Inc., a wearable tech agency, has launched what may be the first publically available wearable technology database. The database captures, classifies and provides insights on the wearable space to date.
Vandrico currently has 115 devices in their database. These include wearables that are available on the market today like Pebble and Fitbit Force as well as those that have been announced like Recon Jet, Neptune Pine and Thalmic’s Myo armband. Each device has its own dedicated page that provides in-depth information such as the where the device is worn; it’s primary application and things like price and power source.
According to Vandrico, the average price for a wearable is $431 USD and the most popular wearable component is the accelerometer. Their market insights also suggest that the most common areas of focus for wearables are Lifestyle, Fitness and Medical.
When it comes to where these devices are to be worn on the body, Vandrico’s breakdown aligns well with the Canalys report on wrist-worn devices. The three most common body locations for wearables are wrists (49%), head (30%) and torso (12%).
Vandrico CEO, Gonzalo Tudela, told us that these insights are a snapshot of the wearable space based on the information their research and developer teams have gathered over the past four months. These will change as new devices are added to the database, which is an on-going process for the team.
“The goal of this database is to provide an accurate and valuable resource for the technology community on the new and emerging wearables sector,” Tudela told Betakit. “We believe that if everyone had access to this type of market research, the community may get some fresh ideas on how to innovate faster and further. It’s simply part of our values as proponents for the open source methodology”.
If the Vandrico’s Twitter activity is any indication of how committed the company is to having complete and accurate information, this database is in good hands. Vandrico seems to be in constant contact with wearable companies and the community to ensure that the database is a powerful resource for anyone interested in this space.
