The last decade has been the years of the phone, shape-shifting and in Harry Potter terms, an ‘Animagus’ that has changed over the years with the world’s ever changing perception of ‘smart intelligence’.
But 2016 marks the dawn of the Wearables. Functional, hands-free and directed towards lifestyle improvement solutions, these gadgets will soon take over the mighty cellphone.
As the meme above very rightly points out, our old gadgets are starting to hold new meanings. The average running shoe is aspiring to become a tool to measure your balance during your exercise routine or warm your feet with smart insoles that heat up with just a tap on your phone. The watch is inching towards replacing the phone, sharing anything from alerts and notifications to making calls. Heck, we are now able to carry our very own 3D cinemas right in our bags with the Occulus and Gear VRs.
With such dramatic transitions in user experiences and deep dives into the field of self mapping, it is only imperative that wearables make their significant mark in the Sports Industry. The field is an age old space of competition and self analysis and wearables have everything to help you put yourself on the leaderboard.
The sports industry is currently wrought with gadgets that are meant only for the pro-levels and the champions to better their game. Golf has its trusty Trackman and Flightscope, while cricket has the PitchVision. While these devices are reliable and extremely accurate, a normal player can only aspire to test with one due their exorbitant price tags. Furthermore, some of them come with elaborate set-ups; such as the PitchVision that has pressure mats, cameras and et all. This further deems them difficult to use.
In recent times the area of sports has seen an entry of companies aiming to create devices/gadgets that are directed at helping the average person’s game. Zepp for instance, has designed a set of wearables for different sports such as Golf, Baseball, Tennis; small devices that can be attached to your racquets. Similarly, Arccos Golf has created small devices that can be screwed onto the top of your golf clubs. These devices come with apps that have certain parameters which are designed to measure each sport, helping you keep a track of your game.
While these devices are more accessible and cheaper than the pro-level tools, they are still priced slightly higher making them out of reach for the young and young adult sports players. Furthermore, the average person is showing interest or expertise in more than one sport. In which case the number of devices to invest in also increases.
In the meantime, the Smartwatch and Smartband industry has seen an incredible rise, reaching at almost 65 million units in sale worldwide. They are easy to use, functional with the necessary intelligence to make them useful in lot other fields other than just notifications and alerts. With big players such as Apple and Samsung paving the market, the prediction of 2017 being the year of the wearables seems apt.
At SlamdunQ we feel that these are the ideal devices for the aspirational and recreational sports player to monitor their sports performance. They are hands-free which means that they allow you to focus on your game while collecting data and monitoring your performance. While the world moves towards Smartwatches and Smartbands a player is not hindered by the thought of buying a new gadget for their sport. Furthermore, with just one device, the player can load more than one app to monitor his multiple sports, making him switch between golf and tennis as easily as switching between whatsapp and photo gallery.
With the wearable industry taking off and particularly the smartwatches and smartbands, having access to sensors that sit on the wrist will provide access to incredible solutions, from lifestyle to fitness to health and medical. At such a time sports apps will have immense value and make monitoring, performance improvement and body movement tracking extremely easy and everyday solutions.
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