The smartwatch craze may not last as most people think, with market analysts saying smart clothing will become more popular by the end of 2016.
Angela McIntyre, research director at analyst firm Gartner, says shift will be due to smartshirts and other smart clothing being able to hold more sensors closer to the skin and collect more information about the wearer's health, according to The Guardian.
Gartner predicts that by 2016, shipments for smart garments will out-ship smart wristbands by 7 million units.
"First-generation smartshirts have been available from companies like Adidas and Underarmour for a while now marketing them to professional athletes, but we're starting to see interest from regular manufacturers of garments for a much larger audience," said McIntyre .
Another point made was that most people who don't participate in sports will want to use smart garments to keep track of their heart rate, with reasons including staying healthy and making sure their stress levels aren't too high, ZDNet reported.
"They want to get insight into their emotions during the day and help with ways to get biofeedback," said McIntyre . "You perhaps need to modify what you're doing or understand if you're feeling tense so you can turn that around. So heart-rate monitoring is important for health reasons but also for stress and happiness."
Gartner also predicts that smart wristband shipments will go down from 30 million last year to 20 million by this year's end, and then to 17 million in 2015 as more people lean towards buying a smartwatch, The Guardian reported. Smartwatch shipments, however, are expected to go up from 10 million in 2014 to 40 million in 2015, and then to 60 million in 2016.
She added that smart clothing could be used for purposes outside of sports, such as letting wearers know if they are entering an area that has high pollution levels, ZDNet reported. Other people that could possibly benefit from such technology include miners, police, rescue-personnel and firefighters. Smart garments could also start being used in the medical field after 2018.
However, McIntyre pointed out that smart clothing has brought up privacy concerns, saying the companies that make this clothing could sell collected data to insurance and marketing companies.
"People will perhaps feel they will need to gain more control over where their data goes and by very cognizant of who's getting access to seeing that data and make choices among providers based on the privacy of that data or their ability to control who it's sent to," she said.
