Welcome to The Wearable Weekly, your trusted guide to all things wearable tech. If you only have time to read one thing about wearables this week, this is it. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Wearable Weekly using the form below to make sure it hits your email inbox every week!
Industry Highlights
The biggest news this week in the wearable world came out of Google’s I/O ATAP keynote where the team unveiled two new wearable projects which have the potential to be game changers:
- Project Soli is the world’s first tiny wearable radar sensor. The sensor can track sub-millimeter motions at high speed and accuracy which makes it fit for precise gesture control.
- Project Jacquard is Google’s foray into textiles. Jacquard is a series of tools which fashion designers and developers can use to create interactive clothing. It includes Google’s own conductive yarn which can be weaved into clothing to equip it with touch and gesture interactivity and feedback from components such as haptics and LEDs.
Statistics & Forecasts
Wearable shipments to enterprise and industrial customers will jump from 166,000 units in 2013, to 27.5 million in 2020, a compound annual growth rate of 108% (Forbes)
Apple has sold 7 million Watch orders in total and shipped 2.5 million watches so far, according to a Global Equities Research (CNN Money)
Shipments of smart AR glasses will increase from 114,000 units worldwide in 2015 to nearly 5.4 million units annually by 2020, according to Tractica (AZO)
Q1 2015 saw a total of 11.4 million wearable devices shipped globally, triple the 3.8 million shipped during the same quarter in 2014, according to IDC (CNET)
Fitbit is leading the wearable market with Xiaomi taking second place, according to IDC (ZDNET)
Internet of Things Market to Reach $1.7 Trillion by 2020 according to IDC (WSJ)
34 million smartwatch displays — the screens that constitute the watch face — will ship worldwide this year, up 250 percent compared to 2014, according to IHS (CNET)
Device Announcements
Google’s ATAP unveiled Project Soli – a tiny wearable radar interaction sensor at I/O (BGR)
Google’s ATAP unveiled Project Jacquard – a set of components to create interactive clothing including its own conductive yarn along with a partnership with Levis (Yahoo Tech)
Apple Watch will be available for purchase in-store in two weeks (MobileSyrup)
Disney unveiled its new line of connected, wearable toys called Playmation (TechCrunch)
Asus ZenWatch 2 unveiled at Computex (MobileSyrup)
BLOCKS announced its imminent crowdfunding campaign (MobileSyrup)
Funding, Crowdfunding, and M&A
Intel Agreed to Buy Altera for $16.7 Billion (WSJ)
Fitbit updated its IPO filing with pricing details to raise up to $358M (TechCrunch)
Major Milestones
Nvidia announced GameWorks VR (CNET)
TripAdivsor launched an Android Wear app (CNN Money)
Foursquare was updated with Android Wear support (Android Police)
Volvo unveils its Apple Watch support of On Call (Wired)
Google Glass Chief, Chris O’Neill, announced he is leaving his position (Re/Code)
Rumours
Sony working on new SmartBand 2 with heart rate monitor (Verge)
Subscribe to The Wearable Weekly
Don’t forget to subscribe to The Wearable Weekly using the form below to make sure it hits your email inbox every week!