A Dozen Elements of Mind-blowing Wearables

This morning I moderated a panel on Mind-blowing Wearables at CES. I was joined by an esteemed group of panelists including Ariel Garten, Founder and CEO of IteraXon the producer of Muse: The Brain Sensing Headband, Carmichael Roberts, Co-Founder and Chairman of MC10, and Jeanette Duffy, Deputy Director, Cause Platforms, UNICEF Ventures. I’ve actually known MC10 for a number of years and have visited their lap in Cambridge. I’ve always been impressed with their approach to technology, implementation, and application, as well as their approach to partnerships for their go-to-market strategy.

We covered a number of topics and one area of discussion got me thinking about what makes a mind-blowing wearable. Here are a few of my thoughts on the requirements needed for a successful wearable:

1. Functionality. First and foremost, the wearable has to work really well. It has to work flawlessly. It has to essentially work perfectly.
2. Fit. Successful wearables will fit into our daily lives. They will fit with the activities we engage in. They will fit into our lifestyles.
3. Relevancy. The wearable has to provide significance to the consumer. There must be a clear value proposition.
4. Positive consumer ROI. There is a consumer cost for all wearables that is almost always overlooked. I rarely hear anyone talk about the costs of wearables borne by the consumer. If the battery has to be charged, then this is a cost borne by the consumer. I actually believe having to charge the battery of a wearable frequently is a pretty high cost. Examining (and making sense of) a data interface is a cost borne by the consumer. The wrist is popular real estate for wearables and given the constrained supply, there is an opportunity cost for certain wearables today and likely all wearables in the future. Scarce body real estate forces potential users to pick one wearable over another. The relevancy of the wearable has to be above the cost incurred by the consumer.
5. Perfect user experience. The user experience has to be perfect. This includes not only the hardware but importantly the software too. The user must have a positive experience with the hardware, syncing or downloading related digital data, and any associated apps or other data interfaces.
6. Sticky use-case scenario. The use-case scenario has to be sticky. Ascertaining valuable information once that then proceeds to never change isn’t a sticky use-case scenario. Using digitized information derived from the wearable has to become habitual.
7. Simplicity. The product has to be simple. The hardware has to be simple. The software and corresponding interface has to be simple. It has to be easy to operate the wearable and easy to understand what it does. It has to be easy to comprehend and make sense of the digitized data. This does not mean the functionality needs to be simply. A wearable can have very complex technology and still provide a simple and straightforward user experience.
8. Beyond novel. The wearable has to provide information that is more than novel.
9. Invisible. The wearable should essentially be invisible to the user. It shouldn’t interfere with anything the user might want to do.
10. Non-redundant functionality. The wearable should provide functionality that isn’t being provided by some other mechanism.
11. Cultural relevancy. Ariel Garten used this term on our panel. I’m not sure it is a prerequisite of a successful wearable but I do believe it can contribute significantly to the potential success of a wearable and I think overtime many successful wearables gain elements of cultural relevancy if they didn’t possess them prior to achieving success. Essentially, by dawning the wearable does the user become part of something bigger than themselves? Do they become part of a group or following? Do they gain some identity?
12. Produce viable change in the physical/analog world. The wearable has to ultimately produce (or motivate) real change in the physical world in which we live. I talk about this in Digital Destiny. I refer to the digital data feedback loop. Digitizing the data and adding a level of curation isn’t sufficient. The newly available digitized information needs to inform change in the physical world in which we live and the user needs to implement that change.