What is a hearable? Plus why they’re going to be the biggest wearable
- You’ve probably got one but didn’t realise it: products like Apple’s AirPods and Plantronics’ BackBeat FIT are set to dominate the wearables market
- Their uses will extend into hearing aids and medical devices
Are smartwatches just a fad? Absolutely not, a new report predicts, with falling prices meaning that sales of wearables devices – including smartwatches, wristbands and fitness trackers – will surge by a quarter in 2019.
However, by 2022, smartwatches will lose their place as the dominant wearable with the rise of a different product: the “hearable”.
Analysts at research company Gartner forecast that worldwide shipments of wearable devices will reach 225 million in 2019, an increase of 25.8 per cent on 2018. They also think that wearables will become a US$42 billion market next year, about a third of that from sales of smartwatches.
Seventy-four million smartwatches are expected to be sold in 2019, but for now it is a market dominated by the Apple Watch. “The smartwatch market is bolstered by the relatively stable and higher average selling price of the Apple Watch,” said Alan Antin, research director at Gartner.
However, there’s a price drop coming, albeit a small one. Antin predicts that the average price of smartwatches will slowly decline from US$221.99 in 2018 to US$210 in 2022, due to a growth in lower-priced competitors and higher volumes leading to reductions in manufacturing and component costs.