Welcome to The Wearable Weekly, your trusted guide to all things wearable tech. If you only have time to read one thing about wearables this week, this is it.
Industry Highlights
Fitbit, Apple and Xiaomi are the top three wearable vendors according to the latest IDC report. The report shows Apple gaining huge traction in the second quarter of 2015 with 3.6 million units shipped, compared to Fitbit’s 4.4 million. But the big news really was the growth of the space as a whole. IDC says wearable shipments reached 18.1-million in Q2 2015, a 223.2 percent increase compared to the same time last year.
“News of the death of Apple Watch is considerably premature” says J.P. Morgan. The Investment firm believes that Apple’s upcoming watchOS 2, which will bring native apps, and the expansion of retail in Best Buy stores will boost sales of Apple’s first wearable device.
“The Apple watch is an interesting toy, but not a revolution” says Swatch CEO. In an interview with a Swiss newspaper, Swatch CEO Nick Hayek Jr. said that later this year Swatch will sell smartwatches that last nine months per battery and will be an alternative to the credit card.
Statistics & Forecast
Apple shipped 3.6 million Apple Watches in the second quarter of 2015, just behind Fitbit’s 4.4 million fitness devices according to new report from IDC (MobileSyrup)
Wearable Payments Could Total 500 Billion+ Annually By 2020 says Tractica (Business Solutions)
Sensors enabling a $70bn wearable technology market by 2025 according to IDTechEx (Yahoo Finance)
New Wristly survey finds that 49% of Apple Watch owners never used the platform to stream music, another 52% chose not to sync photos (Bidness)
71% of CivicScience survey respondents say they do not intend to buy a wearable fitness tracker in the next year compared to 11% who do (MediaPost)
Device Announcements
Polyvera unveiled the first-ever bendable screen smartwatch for consumers (PSFK)
Google and Intel announced a partnership to create new 3D camera and virtual reality technologies (Motley Fool)
OMsignal powered PoloTech smart shirt from Ralph Lauren goes on sale (MobileSyrup)
Funding, Crowdfunding, and M&A
Avegant announced $24M in Series B funding led by Lian Luo (Hangzhou Liaison Interactive Information Technology Co., Ltd (PR Newswire)
Sweden-based Resolution Games has raised $6M to create VR games (VentureBeat)
Major Milestones
Cedar Fair Amusement Parks announced it will be testing Virtual Reality on Roller Coasters (Road to VR)
Pebble released firmware version 3.3 update (MobileSyrup)
HTC partners with Best Buy Canada to debut HTC Vive for first time in Canada at September event (MobileSyrup)
Best Buy expanding Apple Watch sales to more stores in the U.S. (9to5Mac)
Many Moto 360 owners now receiving Android Wear 1.3 update (9to5 Google)
Many Sony SmartWatch 3 devices receiving Android Wear 1.3 update (Xperia Blog)
Sony released watch face app for Sony SmartWatch 3 (Android Police)
Apple began selling 3rd party accessories for Apple Watch in store beginning with ElevationLab’s nightstand (MacRumors)
LA Philharmonic create virtual reality app to bring Beethoven to the masses (PSFK)
Rumours
Microsoft patents suggests that in the future wearables will use electrical signals to let users know they have an email (CNET)
Leaked pic of upcoming Samsung smartwatch found on Instagram (MobileSyrup)
New leak shows two possible Moto 360 models coming (MobileSyrup)
LG, Motorola, Huawei, and ASUS are all expected to announce wearable tech at IFA (9to5 Google)
Pics of the upcoming Moto 360 2 appear in the wild (Engadget)
Rumours continue to swirl around the emergence of smart bands for Apple Watch and the use of hidden diagnostic ports for advanced use (9to5 Mac)
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