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
Apple may be skipping past TV and heading right to virtual reality. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster no longer believes that the Apple TV is coming, but suggests that Apple may be setting its sights on virtual reality instead.
Loads of Google wearable announcements are rumoured to be taking place at Google I/O. From a new version of Google Glass, an operating system for the Internet of Things, updates to Android Wear and even major virtual reality announcements, the rumour mill for Google I/O is churning.
Upcoming Apple WWDC event expected to bring major Apple Watch improvements. Apple is expected to show off new Apple Watch features in June at the next WWDC, including a Find My Phone feature, improved fitness and health apps, and 3rd party access to the watch face complications.
Statistics & Forecasts
KGI cuts annual shipment estimates of Apple Watch in half, to under 15 million, and says over 80% of current sales are 42MM version (9to5 Mac)
Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty predicts Apple could sell 36 million of its smartwatches over the first 12 months (CNET)
Apple Watch Orders Estimated to Average 30,000 Per Day in U.S. after initial launch, says Slice Intelligence (MacRumors)
Fitness & sports centric wearable device shipments to surpass 80 Million by 2020, says new Research & Markets report (Global Newswire)
Smart clothing shipments will grow from 140,000 units in 2013 to 10.2 million units by 2020 says new report from Research & Markets (Businesswire)
Global wearable sensors market was valued at USD $70 million in 2014, growing at a CAGR of 45.2% from 2014 to 2020, says new report from Research & Markets (Businesswire)
TechNavio’s analysts forecast the Global Smart Glasses market for Augmented Reality to grow at a CAGR of 194.2 percent over the period 2014-2019 (PRnewswire)
Device Announcements
Active-lifestyle brand Avia, owned by Sequential Brands Group Inc., announced a new line of wearable fitness devices (FootWearNews)
Intel’s Basis launched a new titanium version of Peak (VentureBeat)
Full Withings lineup now at Best Buy Canada (MobileSyrup)
Thalmic Lab’s Myo now available at Best Buy (MobileSyrup)
Apple Watch to be available in store by June says Tim Cook (9to5 Mac)
Apple Watch bands now available in stores (TechCrunch)
Narrative Clip 2 pre-orders launched (MobileSyrup)
Funding, Crowdfunding, and M&A
Little Labs raises $3 Million from NEA and others for its “smartwatch-first” app studio (TechCrunch)
ReVault, a cloud-based storage smartwatch, successfully funded its Indiegogo campaign goal of $65,000 with 28 days to go (Indiegogo)
FOVE eye-tracking VR headset successfully met its Kickstarter crowdfunding goal of $250,000 with 42 days to go (Kickstarter)
Major Milestones
Huawei launched new LiteOS for wearables and IoT (CNET)
Apple released its first software update 1.0.1 for wearable devices (MobileSyrup)
Google added Google Play browsing to Android Wear (Android Central)
Asus Zenwatch received Android Wear update 5.1.1 (MobileSyrup)
Android Wear update brought WiFi support to Moto 360, Sony SmartWatch 3 and Samsung Gear Live (MobileSyrup)
Toronto police started year long pilot with wearable cameras (CTV News)
Oculus announced it will be pausing Rift SDK development on Mac and Linux (Road to VR)
In-Q-Tel Stragecially invested in Atlas Wearables Technology (IQT)
Samsung’s only Android Wear smartwatch removed from Google Play store (Phonearena)
Rumours
McLaren is working on a wearable to combat jeglag (Trusted Reviews)
Google job posting hints company working on a “family of Glass products” (ITProPortal)
Pebble rumoured to be having trouble maintaining its growth (TechCrunch)
Android Wear rumoured to be getting speaker support and on-watch calling (9to5 Google)
Google Cardboard / VR announcements expected at I/O this month (Fortune)
Google may reveal IoT OS Brillo at I/O (The Verge)
WWDC to bring new features for the Apple Watch including 3rd party complications (ZDNET)
Apple may be getting into Virtual Reality predicts Piper Jaffray analyst (Quartz)
Samsung is working on a wearable robot (Patently Apple)
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