I first heard the concept of the battle for the wrist at a session on mobile health technologies at SXSW. Turns out that this is a really important concept and the speaker was absolutely right that there’s currently a HUGE battle brewing to “own” people’s wrists.
This was confirmed to me today when I saw this tweet:
Almost every major consumer electronics manufacturer now working on a smart watch http://t.co/vIP7ryHqL1 #mHealth
— Health Is Social (@HealthIsSocial) July 5, 2013
The article lists about a dozen HUGE companies that are working on some sort of wrist related technology. The idea of a smart watch is powerful, because a watch is something that we’re use to wearing. Maybe even more important is that we’re use to seeing people wearing a watch. So, wearing a smart watch doesn’t change people’s behaviors or interactions with other people.
The real question I have in the mobile health space is how much power can really be derived from the wrist. Will it have to be connected to other things we wear? I think it will, but we’ll see.
What is clear is that having a computer attached to you in some way is going to change a lot of things in our life including how we manage our health. The wrist is making a strong play to be the place where that computer is stored.
I think it’s interesting that they’ve chosen watches as the medium… Most people have stopped wearing watches because they have smartphones to tell them the time. I guess it will become fashionable to wear a “watch” again.