健康腕带追踪时代或将衰落 可穿戴式设备仍有戏

    乌表示，他认为健康追踪设备今后只会占可穿戴设备市场的一小部分。它们将像iPod和GPS追踪器一样——对有些人有用，但再也不会畅销热卖，而且它们中的大多数都将被智能手机应用所取代。他说，它们很可能被智能手表给干掉。

    就算他明知健康追踪可穿戴设备市场会很快大起大落，他们公司还是投产了，目的主要是为了练手。他说：“我们这么做主要是为了抓住机会。它是现在的发展潮流，我们作为一家公司生产它并投放市场可以小试身手。”

    可穿戴设备要进一步发展需要有更具吸引力的使用案例。他说，它必须经过“转身测验”的考验。这就是说，如果人们在上班路上忘了带它，他们会不会转身回家去拿？大多数人会转身回家拿手机、钥匙和钱包。但他们不会为了这些活动监控设备转身回去。

    乌说：“健康追踪还不是太有吸引力的使用案例。我们这些厂家还没法让它具有足够的吸引力，它没法通过转身测验，甚至连接近这个水平都做不到。”

    不过他已经在策划让可穿戴设备更有吸引力的创意了。

    要通过转身测验的一个办法是让它拥有“固定身份”。比指纹识别更好的一点是，可穿戴设备可以用人们的心电图来识别用户。他说：“如果它能用你的生理信号认出你，打开车门，开灯，还能付账，一旦离开你的身体，它就不再安全好用，”那这种功能将会很有吸引力。

    乌说这将会和迪斯尼公司（Disney）的魔力腕带（Magicband）很像。这条腕带只要扫描一下，就能让一家人去迪斯尼主题公园玩时办理入住、打开旅馆房门、进入公园、买东西、上网查看照片。实际上在迪斯尼所属的领地里，这条魔力腕带就取代了钥匙和钱包。乌称：“如果迪斯尼公司能把它做得更漂亮些，它还能在魔法王国以外的其他地方用上的话，我一定会力挺它。”

    这就是现在大热的可穿戴设备一个可能的发展方向。但现在乌还得继续做健康追踪设备。Misfit的这个设备2013年第四季度首发，现在已经卖出了20万个，而且每个季度的销量都在增长。他预计，和iPod及GPS追踪器的市场一样，像他这种健康追踪器的销售也会逐渐下降，一些硬件厂商也会步耐克的后尘，最终致力开发智能手表的软件而不是硬件。

    健康追踪设备的时代可能将日渐衰落，但对可穿戴设备来说，日子才刚开始。（财富中文网）

    译者：清远

    Vu said he expects fitness trackers to be a tiny part of the overall wearables industry. They'll be like iPods and GPS trackers -- useful to some, but no longer top sellers, and mostly replaced by smartphone apps. Fitness trackers will likely be killed by the smartwatch, Vu says.

    His company produced a fitness tracking wearable device for practice, even as he knows the category will quickly peak and decline. "We did it because we're being opportunistic," he says. "This is where things are going now, and we're exercising our muscles as an organization to build and ship a product."

    The next step in the evolution of wearable devices will require a more compelling use case. It will need to pass the "turn around test," he says. That means, would you turn around for it if you were halfway to work and realized you'd forgotten it? Most people would turn around for their phone, keys, or wallet. But they wouldn't turn around for their activity monitors.

    "Fitness tracking is just not a compelling use case," Vu says. "We makers haven't been able to make it sufficiently compelling. It doesn't pass the turn around test. It doesn't even come close."

    Vu is already scheming up ideas to make wearable devices more compelling.

    One way to pass the turn around test is with "persistent identity." Better than fingerprint recognition, wearable devices would use a person's heart waves to identify them. This proposition becomes compelling, "if it identifies you, opens your car, turns on your lights and you can use it to pay, all with your physiological signature," he says, "and once your take it off of your body, it is no longer a secure device."

    Vu said this would be similar to Disney's MagicBands, the bracelets that allow families visiting a Disney (DIS) theme park to check in, unlock their hotel rooms, enter parks, pay for goods, and connect to their photos online, all by scanning a bracelet. MagicBands essentially replace keys and wallets within Disney's properties. "That is something I could get behind if they could make it a little nicer and it worked outside of the Magic Kingdom and in the rest of the world," Vu says.

    That's one direction the hot category of wearable devices is likely to go. But for now, Vu is sticking with fitness trackers. Launched in the fourth quarter of 2013, Misfit sold 200,000 devices, a number that's increasing each quarter. He expects that, like the market for iPods and GPS trackers, fitness trackers like his will decline, and some hardware makers will follow Nike's footsteps, focusing on smartwatch software over hardware.

    The era of fitness tracking devices might be waning. But for wearables, it's still early days.