Two trends are inevitable in the wearable Health Tech market. One is convergence; devices will take on more and more functions, eliminating the need for many separate devices. The second is price reduction. While many companies have plenty of clever intellectual property embedded in their products, the fact remains that we’re in an explosive expansion stage in the industry where we see lots of new companies and overlapping products. The competition will rapidly wring out any excess profit margin as they run out of early adopters with fat wallets and have to start to rely on the more cost-sensitive average consumer. So prices will drop. Like rocks.
Case in point: now through December 23, you can buy a Striiv Fusion smartwatch and fitness tracker through StackSocial for just $55. Yes, it does steps and calories burned and distance traveled. It monitors sleep. But it also has a watch, and the alarm can wake you up. And it provides alerts for text messages, emails, incoming calls, weather conditions, and more. Oh, and it includes a touchscreen interface. And you can get it for the price of taking a family of four out to watch a movie.
The important point about this is that the Striiv Fusion is not a dumb digital pedometer; it’s a platform capable of performing new tasks through the addition of new apps. This ability to expand its mission is part of the convergence trend; flexible products like this will be able to be more things to more people. And this current promotion makes it clear that prices can be a lot lower than the multiple hundreds of dollars being charged by some companies.
