Equipping the watches with innovative features has been a major strategy of manufacturers. From health monitoring features such as heart-rate monitoring to fitness tracking features such as calculating running distance, calories burnt, and steps covered, innovative features have been included in the smartwatches. Tech giants have focused on including more capabilities that would help people in monitoring the health and various health conditions with the help of sensors in the smartwatch. According to a patent filed by Apple, its new smartwatch would have a feature that can monitor blood glucose levels. If the feature is included in its new product, patients having diabetes can be benefited. Moreover, market players have been trying to attract customers by offering a simple and smooth experience. Widgets that give ease in access to various functionalities have been added by Google in its Wear OS smartwatch. Research and development activities have been focused on offering novel features that would attract customers and help the company in gaining a competitive edge. With new capabilities, market players have also focused on reducing the costs of new offerings. The market of smartwatches is booming with new offerings and features. According to the research firm Allied Market Research, the global smartwatch market is expected to reach $31.07 billion by 2025. The introduction of new capabilities has played a crucial part for the market being fiercely competitive and market players have been trying to attract new consumers with its innovative offerings.
Adding new features and customizing for a particular target audience is one of the prime strategies of smartwatch manufacturers. Garmin, a tech firm, has upgraded its smartwatch line of Forerunner with focus on requirements of runners. The new line focuses on helping runners understand performance, set goals, and refer training history. This new line of products has five models including Forerunner 45, 45S, 245, 245 Music and 945. The Forerunner 45 and 45S are equipped with heart-rate monitoring and GPS. They have around the clock operation, tracking ability of various exercises along with workouts. It can monitor distance, sleep, and calories. It has a battery life of up to seven days. In addition, the Forerunner 245 and 245 Music contains VO2 tracking, tools for carrying out post-run analysis. The Music device can store up to 500 songs along with playlist syncing services. The Forerunner 945 tops it all with space for nearly 1,000 songs and support for maps and Garmin Pay. It is equipped with on-watch running dynamics, pulse-ox monitoring, and activity profiles. Moreover, it has a battery life of two weeks in the smartwatch mode and up to 10 hours with GPS and music. This launch would bring a competitive edge to Garmin.
Offering health monitoring capabilities in smartwatches is one of the effective strategies adopted by market players to enhance adoption. Apple is one of the major players in the smartwatch market with its innovative and stylish Apple Watch Series 4 offering health-centric functionalities. However, all the eyes are focused on its next Apple Watch Series 5. The excitement about this new watch is due to its additional innovative functions. It will be equipped with sophisticated sensors as there were its predecessor. The new sensors would help in providing various health functions. Along with capabilities such as scent tracking and detecting dangerous gases in atmosphere, new patents show that the new flagship watch would be equipped with capabilities of tracking blood sugar levels. With new patent filed, Apple outlined that it will carry out measurement of glucose levels in non-invasive ways. If it is able to do this, this new smartwatch would help patients suffering from conditions such as diabetes. The Cupertino-based tech giant has focused on health when it comes to including new capabilities in smartwatches. It collaborated with Stanford University for collecting information on heart health of over 400,000 participants. With these new features for health coming into picture, it is expected that there will be major changes in battery life and others such as strap of the watch. This new offering would help Apple in gaining more market share of this fiercely competitive market.
Another tech giant Google has spent years in refining its smartwatch software for offering more simpler, intuitive, and easier experience than before. There have been significant improvements in its Wear OS smartwatch software. Along with software, the tech giant has made the watch more useful and feel smoother than before. New feature known as Tiles has been added. Tiles are nothing but widgets that can be swiped for gaining information on various factors such as weather, appointments, news, and others. Users can access Tiles with left swipe on the watchface. Previously, the left swipe took the user to Google Fit. However, Google Fit will be there along with other widgets. Frank Deschenes, the Product Manager of Wear OS, highlighted that Tiles will enable users to determine the progress toward fitness goals, know the time of appointment, and check the heart rate. Google offers the customization of layout with Wear OS mobile app and tap & hold functionality that helps in rearranging the apps. More tiles will be added in coming years as the development goes further, according to Google. This flagship smartwatch of Google is expected to be released by June 2019.
Offering better capabilities than its predecessor product is another strategy adopted by manufacturers. Michael Kors has revealed its novel Sofie smartwatch featuring heart-rate sensor and other functionalities. It has offered better capabilities than its debut in 2017. There is no surprise Sofie has heart-rate sensor as this feature has been included in every smartwatch. It is able to track the heart rate with Google Fit and other apps. It can also record the running distance along with supporting Google Assistant and Google Pay. There have been significant improvements in this product. The smartwatch supports tethered GPS that can track workouts and runs. This smartwatch contains Snapdragon Wear 2100 chipset, a 300mAh battery, and 4 GB of internal storage. This watch would present a significant competition for smartwatches ranging from $325 to $350.
