Smart watches are steadily gaining momentum and ABI Research predicts that this will be one of the key years for the nascent market, forecasting that 1.2 million of these devices will be shipped in 2013.
The problem with previous generation of smart watches were that they were either too ugly, too bulky, had weak functionality and/or their battery life was not good enough. However, with the emergence of Bluetooth 4.0, a new window of opportunity was open, allowing for more efficient battery use.
ABI splits these wearable computing devices into four categories: notification types, voice operational smart watches, hybrid smart watches and completely independent smart watches. According to them, notification type devices are the MetaWatch and Cookoo smart watches, offering alerts for incoming calls, messages and other notifications. On the other hand, voice operational smart watches enable users to conduct calls and speak some commands via the device such as Martian’s smart watch; while standalone smart watches have their own OS – a good example is I’m Watch, and perhaps Apple’s highly anticipated iWatch and Samsung’s Galaxy Altius.
We’re certain that we’ll be hearing more interesting things about smart watches in the days to come. In the meantime, you can get more information about ABI’s findings from their website.
[Image from SFgate]