Organised by Wearable Technologies (WT) from Munich, the WT Innovation World Cup is an annual innovation competition that serves as a catalyst for technological innovation. On 13 October 2016, WT invited winners of last year’s contests to share their products and ideas during the Wearable Technologies Session ASIA 2016 in Hong Kong.
Among the winners, DNX is a Korean startup that produces personal safety smartwatches. Grace Kwon, CEO of DNX explained that their latest product Qliqis designed to meet the demand for SOS function in wearable devices, especially for women, elderly and children. The safety alarm function of Qliq can be activated by pressing on the dial for two seconds without alarming the attacker or causing false alarm. What’s more, the device can store kinetic energy and is fail-safe. Seeing that the number of users of contactless payment will reach 300 million by 2017, DNX adds the function of contactless payment to Qliq to accommodate credit, debit and pre-paid card payments, said Kwon.
Other basic functions of the device include GPS, fitness, notification, recording, selfie and phone-finding. While their current models are made in plastic to control the market price, Kwon said they plan to produce jewellery versions of the product in the future. Qliq will be available in Amazon next month at a retail price of around US$100.
During the session, Christian Stammel, CEO of WT briefly shared the current and projected market development of wearable products worldwide. While all segments of wearables are expected to grow, the three outstanding segments are sports, fitness and wellness trackers, healthcare devices and smartwatches. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ estimates, the global mobile health market will be worth US$23 billion by 2017. Asia-Pacific and Europe are expected to be the biggest markets of this segment, each making up 30 percent of the market share, followed by The United States/Canada which will occupy 28 percent of the market. Regarding the form of wearable technology, WT predicts that by 2020 smart patches will represent 30 percent of the wearable market with 200 million shipments and it is going to be a disposable patch that can be used and removed anytime by the user. Despite the positive outlook, wearable technology faces its limitations, the foremost of which is energy, followed by other concerns such as materials, communications, sensors and user interface.
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