Smart Clothing Leads The Future Trend

At present, smart clothing is still in the field of professional athletes, but this category of products is expected to enter the mass consumption field at the end of 2016, and replace the current fitness tracker.

Ralph Lauren's (Ralph Lauren) Polo Technology Smart T-shirt was unveiled at the August us open, which can monitor heart rate and respiration and connect to smartphones through Bluetooth. This is only a case of combining technology with clothing. For fitness enthusiasts and athletes, the T-shirt can replace the traditional chest belt and other wearable fitness equipment.

"Because smart T-shirts and smart clothes can be equipped with more sensors, and these sensors are more close to the skin, they can be used to collect more information and produce more accurate data, such as collecting more comprehensive data for the heart, not just heart rate," explains Angela McIntyre, director of Gao Dena Research (Gartner), explaining to the guardian.

"Companies like Adidas and Underarmour have launched the first generation of smart t-shirts for some time, but their products are mainly for professional athletes. And now we see ordinary clothing manufacturers showing interest in their products, and their products will be targeted at a wider range of consumers, "she said.

according to Gartner It is predicted that in 2015, the sales of smart clothing will exceed 10 million sets, and in 2016 it will further increase to 26 million sets, 7 million times higher than that of smart wristbands in the same year.

In 2015, the total shipment volume of wearable fitness equipment including smart wristbands and clothing, sports watches, chest belts and other fitness monitors was predicted to be 68 million 100 thousand sets, a slight decrease compared with 70 million 200 thousand sets in 2014, while the total volume of shipments in 2016 will rise to 91 million 300 thousand sets again in the wake of smart clothing.

Smart watches have the function of fitness tracking, such as Motorola's Moto 360 and the upcoming Apple smart watches, which will occupy the sales volume of fitness track.

"Consumers will have more choices next year in wristbands and smart watches with similar functions," explains Mcintyre. "But the sales momentum of wristbands will pick up, because the market capacity of fitness and health monitoring products will gradually expand, and some people do not want to wear 2 screens on their wrists. They will choose to wear a wristband and a traditional watch."

Gartner predicts that by the end of 2014, the world's smart wristband sales will reach 20 million, compared with the 30 million decline in 2013. In 2015, under the impact of smart watches, this figure will further decline to 17 million.

The wristbands will not quit the market, because people will develop new uses, Mcintyre explained. She predicts that the sales of wristbands will return to 19 million in 2016.

"We will see in 2016 that wristbands with a wide range of designs and functions are emerging in the market. The future market is just like what we see now, but what is exciting is that there will be grey areas between wristbands and smart watches, "Mcintyre said. " Wristband It will be developed for other purposes, including access control, identity recognition and building access control.

　　 Intelligent Watch Shipments will increase from 10 million this year to 40 million in 2015 and further increase to 60 million in 2016. This growth is partly due to the promotion of Apple smart watches and Android wearable devices, which will be launched in the spring of 2015, and will also be promoted by traditional watch manufacturers (such as CASIO and Fossil) to launch networked watches or smart watches.

"We think that smart watches are the evolution of digital watches, and watches shipped around the world are 1 billion 200 million, according to Statistics Brain," explains Mcintyre. "Some of the digital watches will become networked watches next year."