A report published by Reportlinker summarises three years of research into wearable technologies, which has found that the market will be worth over US$30 billion in 2016, and will grow in three stages: 9% annually to over $40 billion in 2018, but then accelerating to 23% through to over $100bn by 2023, before slowing to 10% to reach over $150bn by 2026.
The level of growth is also anticipated to be seen in the industrial sector, as well as other sectors which may include logistics. Wearable technology concerns any electronic products that are designed to be worn on the person.
The report examines the historical context for wearable technology products, looking at key yet contrasting sectors such as medical devices and commodity infotainment items like headphones or electronic watches.
It then focuses on key trends today, ranging from societal megatrends (e.g. the aging population), to industry-wide innovation trends (e.g. evolving form factors and interfaces in devices), and finally down to core player-by-player strategies within industry and product verticals.
Within this report, sections are included on each key of these key product areas, including smartwatches, smart clothing and smart eyewear (including augmented and virtual reality, smart skin patches and headphones.
PTI previously reported that smartphones are a trend that is rapidly becoming more prevalent in the business environment, as companies look to utilise apps to improve operations.
In a previous technical paper, Netherlands-based tech firm De Voorhoedewhich focused on the possibility of implementing Google Glass within container terminals, as this type of software presents new possibilities for port software solutions.
Within ports and terminals, companies such as TBA are developing wearable virtual reality technology in order to improve training capabilities at ports and terminals.
Read more about TBA's emulation in virtual reality TOS training
PTI-TBA recently launched its online training portal at PTI’s recent Terminal Automation and Training Conference, which is designed to improve staff productivity.
