W|W: The Wearable Weekly – Strength in Numbers

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

Google widened its market opportunity in the smartwatch space this week with the launch of Android Wear on iOS. The move allows iPhone users to use newer Android Wear smartwatches with their smartphone. Although iPhone-Android Wear smartwatch users will have limited

Samsung also made move this week to reach outside its own walled “Tizen” garden by announcing that its latest smartwatch, the Samsung Gear S2, will work with other Android phones. Android smartphones running 4.4+ will support Samsung’s round smartwatch but not all features, like Samsung Pay, will be available.

This week also saw a ton of new smartwatches from the likes of LG, Samsung, Motorola, Huawei, TomTom and ASUS as expected at IFA in Berlin. Although each manufacturer launched its own take on the smartwatch, the one commonality between them all was offering variety to consumers with different sizes, models and styles including luxury versions. Motorola took personalization to a whole new level by offering consumers the ability to create their own watch with Moto Maker (US only), choosing from additional bezels, colors, materials and the launch of a men’s, women’s and sports collection.

Statistics & Forecast

245 million wearable devices will be sold in 2019, up from 84 million this year according to CCS Insight’s latest report (Wareable)

Apple Watch sales in China have exceeded 1 million according to analysis by a Chinese company called TalkingData (BI)

The fitness-band category will make up 42% of total wearables shipments in 2020, down from an estimated 48% share this year, and a 53% share in 2014 says Business Insider (BI)

The Europe wearable sensors market is expected to increase to $78.82 million by 2018 at a CAGR of 43.88% over the period 2014-2020 according to Research and Markets (Sys-Con)

Device Announcements

Swatch’s Touch Zero One smartwatch for volleyball now in stores (Forbes Life)

Martian launches five new smartwatches under its 2015 Voice Command Active Life Collection (Martian)

ASUS confirms October availability for its ZenWatch 2 (MobileSyrup)

Motorola launches its latest Moto 360 complete with two sizes, a men’s, women’s and sports collection and tons of customization (MobileSyrup)

Huawei makes its first smartwatch the Huawei Watch available for pre-order on Google Store, available for sale later this month with six different models including a gold version (MobileSyrup)

Samsung officially launches Gear S2 in two versions with availability in October (MobileSyrup)

LG now offering a limited-edition 23-karat gold version of its Urbane smartwatch called the Urbane Luxe (The Verge)

TomTom announces its latest Spark fitness watches (SlashGear)

Merge VR offers low-cost VR alternative (Wired UK)

Funding, Crowdfunding, and M&A

MC10 raising $40 million investment round which could put the company at about $100 million in funding since it was founded in 2008 (Business Journal)

Sony crowdfunding its Wena smartwatch (currently over 500% funded) (The Verge) (Wena)

Major Milestones

Android Wear launches on iOS to give limited functionality to newer Android Wear smartwatches (MobileSyrup)

Samsung Gear S2 smartwatch will work with non-Samsung Android devices (MobileSyrup)

AirBNB launches an Apple Watch app (MobileSyrup)

Discovery channel launches Discovery VR (Geek)

MTV streamed the VMAs in virtual reality (Fortune)

Narrative Clip 2 will ship with video (CNET)

Magic Leap files for 97 patents including virtual reality contact lenses (Fortune)

The US Defence Department partners with Apple, Lockheed Martin and 160 private institutions to develop wearable tech (CNET)

Rumours

Fossil’s smartwatch rumoured to be called Fossil Q (Ubergizmo)

Apple getting into virtual reality according to Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster (Fortune)

Gene Munster suggests Apple could include Augmented Reality in iOS 9 (Phone Arena)

New Apple Watch sports bands may be unveiled at the Apple Announcement next week (Apple Insider)

Apple expected to announce availability of other countries including India (Mac Rumors)