Wearables Landscape 2015 - Sample Report

IoT Report Series | Wearables Landscape 2015 | © VisionMobile | All Rights Reserved | Report Sample
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Copyright © VisionMobile 2015 - v.1.0
Content
1. The rise of IoT Developers
2. The role of developers in wearables
3. The landscape of wearables platforms and APIs
4. The profile of wearable developers
Extra – Making money with wearables
Also by VisionMobile
Find out more at visionmobile.com/reports
The Industrial IoT Landscape
2015
IoT Developer and Platform
Landscape 2015
The Smart Home Landscape
2015
Databoard
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ABOUT THE REPORT
Get the full report for more data and insights
or contact VisionMobile for more details.
http://vmob.me/Wearables15Buy
9TH
EDITION DEVELOPER ECONOMICS
3,150+ IOT DEVELOPERS SURVEYED
670+ WEARABLE DEVELOPERS
140+ COUNTRIES COVERED
50+ PLATFORMS ANALYSED
15 COMPANIES IN OUR SMARTWATCH PLATFORM LEADERBOARD
1M+ WEARABLE DEVELOPERS IN THE WORLD TODAY
Key questions that this report answers:
Which key new use cases are wearable developers discovering, in
the home and in the workplace?
Who is playing in the wearables platform space?
Who’s winning? What are the most promising smartwatch app
platforms?
What’s the market outlook for technology and data platforms?
What are the background and motivations of wearable
developers?
Through which channels can I most effectively reach out to
wearable developers?
How to make money with wearables?

TABLE OF CONTENTS
About the authors ............................................................ 3!
About this report ............................................................. 5!
Executive summary ......................................................... 6!
The rise of IoT Developers ................................................ 8!
Developers are migrating to IoT fast ...........................................8!
Great IoT platforms offer more than just technology ...................9!
The window of opportunity for IoT platforms is open................ 10!
The role of developers in wearables ...................................12!
Disappointment sets in............................................................. 12!
Early use cases for wearables are duds....................................... 14!
Who will discover new use cases? .............................................. 15!
Emerging use cases for consumer wearables .............................. 16!
Wearables in the workplace ...................................................... 19!
The landscape of wearables platforms and APIs..................21!
Who’s playing?......................................................................... 22!
Market evolution in technology platforms.................................. 24!
The smartwatch app platform leaderboard ................................25!
Market evolution in data platforms ...........................................29!
The profile of wearable developers....................................32!
How fashion influences developer demographics .......................32!
Wearable developers focus on near-term opportunities; data is for
later.........................................................................................34!
Lone wolves, startups, or big guns: all can play..........................35!
Mobile and wearables are hand in glove ...................................37!
How to reach wearable developers ............................................38!
[Extra] Making money with wearables...............................40!
Wearables are not easy money ..................................................40!
Wearables as an engagement channel ........................................41!
Where’s the money? Apps, devices and data compared ..............44!
Enterprises are once more the most lucrative audience...............45!
Conclusion ....................................................................46!
Methodology..................................................................48!

LIST OF GRAPHS
1. Top 3 most popular platforms among IoT developers in 5
vertical markets
2. Consumer and developer interest in wearables over time
3. Developer segment mix of wearable developers, compared to
other IoT developers
4. Targeted audience of wearable developers, compared to
other IoT developers
5. 3 types of wearables platforms
6. The landscape of wearable technology enablers (19
companies)
7. The smartwatch app platform leaderboard (15 companies)
8. The landscape of health data platforms (23 companies)
9. Demographics of wearable developers (age, gender, region),
compared to other IoT developers
10. Wearable and other IoT developers by project type
11. Wearable developers by company size, with breakdown
across project type, type of involvement in IoT, and
developer segment
12. Involvement of wearable developers in mobile apps
13. How wearable developers obtain information
For Team and Enterprise licensees only:
14. Earning potential of wearable developers
15. Propensity of professional wearable, other IoT, and mobile
developers to use advertising as a revenue model
16. Earning potential and revenue model popularity among
wearable developers, broken down by project type
17. Earning potential and revenue model popularity among
wearable developers, broken down by target audience

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Stijn Schuermans
Senior Business
Analyst
Michael Vakulenko
Strategy Director
Christina Voskoglou
Director of Research
and Operations
Stijn is the lead Internet of Things researcher in
the VisionMobile team since 2012. He has
authored over 20 reports and research notes on
mobile and the Internet of Things. He focuses on
understanding how technology becomes value-
creating innovation, how business models affect
market dynamics, and the consequences of this
for corporate strategy.
Stijn holds an engineering master degree and an
MBA. He has over 10 years’ experience as an
engineer, product manager, strategist and
business analyst.
You can reach Stijn at:
stijn@visionmobile.com
@stijnschuermans
Michael has over 18 years’ experience in mobile
and telecom starting from working on first
experimental 3G systems in Qualcomm. Later on
Michael was part of several startups developing
products in the areas of wireless, enterprise
networking and mobile apps.
At VisionMobile Michael works at the cross
section of business models, economics and
technology where he leads strategy practice for
software-centric business models in mobile,
Internet of Things and Connected Car.
You can reach Michael at:
michael@visionmobile.com
@mvakulenko
Christina leads the analyst team and oversees all
VisionMobile data projects from methodology to
analysis and insights generation. She is also
behind VisionMobile’s developer segmentation
research, as well as the Developer Economics
reports and DataBoard subscription services.
Christina has more than 16 years of experience in
statistical consulting, BI design and business
forecasting. She holds an MSc in Statistics from
the London School of Economics (LSE) and a
BSc in Economics & Statistics from the
University of Bath.
You can reach Christina at:
christina@visionmobile.com
@ChristinaVoskog

INTRODUCTION
We surveyed 3,150+ IoT developers from 140+ countries in our Q2
2015 Developer Economics survey. The data from this survey, the
largest research to date on IoT developers, gives us a unique
perspective on how the Internet of Things developer ecosystem
evolves over time. This research report delves into data on the 670+
of those developers that are active in the wearables market.
The online survey was translated in 7 languages (Chinese, French,
Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish) and promoted by
more than 70 leading community and media partners within the app
development and IoT industry. We corrected for regional bias and
segment distribution bias across our outreach channels. For more
information about our methodology, please get in touch.
Wearables are moving from a period of hype to a period of deeper
exploration. In this report we highlight key trends about the critical
role that developers play in IoT and wearables. We also talk about
emerging wearables use cases, including wearables in the workplace.
We look at the demographics and background of wearable
developers, their motivations, opportunities they’re pursuing, where
they work, and how to reach them.
Wearable developers can’t do it alone. They need platforms and
developer ecosystems to support and empower them in their quest for
success. In this report, we identify the three types of developer
platforms found in the market today: technology, device, and data
platforms. We discuss the main players in each of those categories, as
well as how the market is evolving. In particular, we present a
leaderboard of the main smartwatch app platforms: from Apple
Watch OS and Android Wear, to Baidu, Samsung, LG, and Pebble.
In the following sections, you get a flavor of what to expect from our
Wearables Landscape 2015 report with just a few of the key insights.

THE END OF THE WEARABLES HYPE
In the first half of 2015, the hype and enthusiasm around wearables
seems to have made way for disillusionment and a feeling of “Is this
all there is to it?” The release of the Apple Watch resulted in praise
for the device’s design and engineering, but also confusion about its
usefulness. Concerns about security, privacy and interoperability
popped up as well. Moreover, Argus Insights reports1
a decline in
wearable sales after hitting a high post-holidays in January 2015.
“There’s a certain consumer fatigue with wearables,” Cavan
Canavan, a wearables entrepreneur, recently wrote on TechCrunch2
.
“We were told they would track steps — they’re not great at it. We
were told they could track sleep — not truly. And there’s a flood of
devices in the market that all do the same thing. [...] Consumers can
now buy a device for $15 that does the same thing as a device at $99.
[...] The fitness tracker space is confusing and boring. With similar
components and similar features, it’s a race to the bottom for price.”
All this doesn’t stay without consequence. Developers have grown
more apprehensive about getting into wearables. n the six months
between our 8th wave (Q4 2014) and 9th wave surveys (Q2 2015),
the percentage of IoT developers actively targeting wearables has
dropped significantly, with 7 percentage points. Wearables has
dropped from being the second most popular vertical among IoT
developers, to fourth place in the ranking. Developers are taking a
“wait and see” attitude towards wearables, many biding their time
until consumer interest picks up again.
1
http://www.argusinsights.com/wearables-demand-14-15/
2
http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/07/commoditized-wearables/

THE LEAST ACCESSIBLE PROJECT FOR STARTUPS IS NOT HARDWARE, BUT DATA SCIENCE
Hardware is hard, or so the saying goes. Indeed, while the barrier to
create device prototypes has all but disappeared, making a
production-ready device at a reasonable margin is still a major
challenge. To illustrate: Matt Witheiler of VC firm Flybridge Capital
estimates that up to 80% of crowd- and venture funded hardware
projects ship late.
Despite the challenges with producing hardware devices, 61% of
wearable developers work in relatively small companies of less than
50 employees. Especially the number of developers working in teams
of one is surprisingly high: 20% of wearable developers work alone,
compared to 13% of other IoT developers. Mid-sized companies
(under 5,000 employees) are underrepresented, indicating that
wearables has yet to become a mature sector. Furthermore wearables
startups have not yet grown into larger companies, although some big
players (e.g. consumer electronics giants like Samsung, Sony and
LG) are currently in the game.
The distribution of device makers is almost identical to that of
wearable developers in general, including 17% of developers working
alone. As we might expect, working on apps is fully accessible for
small teams (70% of developers in companies of under 50 people).
The least accessible type of project for startups is not hardware, but
data science. Our data indicates that building data apps requires a
larger organisation, perhaps specialized expertise, to create valuable
insights from wearables data. 56% of wearable developers working on
data mashups work in organisations of more than 50 people.

WEARABLES ARE NOT EASY MONEY
In virtually every report from the Developer Economics series, we
highlight how difficult it is for app developers to earn a decent living.
Consistently, a large majority of app developers (60% to 80%) are below
the app poverty line($500 of revenue per month). Only those lucky enough
to score a hit app, or those with business models far bigger than the app
itself (e.g. e-commerce or service subscriptions), can build successful and
sustainable businesses.
The same is true for the wearables market. Making money with apps is just
as hard as in mobile. Making devices is even harder. While the barrier to
create device prototypes has all but disappeared, making a production-
ready device at a reasonable margin is still a major challenge. Furthermore,
there’s cut-throat competition in wearables. Fitness trackers in particular
have been highly commoditized (e.g. the $15 Mi Band), and even the
amount of companies producing smartwatches will soon run in the
hundreds.
The challenge to make money from wearables can be clearly seen in the
revenue profile of wearable developers. More than one in five wearable
developers who are interested in making money are not earning any
revenue at all. A mere one in ten wearable developers are in a safe zone
with revenues exceeding $50K per month. While these numbers are very
comparable to other IoT developers, they don’t show an environment
where sustainable revenues are within the reach of many, let alone a
scalable business.
Wearables are certainly not ‘easy money’. But some segments of wearable
developers are significantly more successful than others. Find out who in
the full report!

Findout about our report subscriptionoptions
Contact:
Andrea Williamson
andreaw@visionmobile.com
Director, Client Services
Tel: +1 831-471-5730

distilling market noise into market sense

Wearables Landscape 2015 - Sample Report

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