Wearables, if you don’t already know, mean tech gadgets you can wear. These include smartwatches, smart glasses etc. Literally, as long as it is smart and can be worn, it is a wearable. And they are the new thing in town (not quite if you follow news and tech). More and more companies are diving into wearables. Why is this so?

Google Glass is the best example of smart glasses while the Moto 360 is the unsurpassed, and also most talked of, smartwatch. Apple also recently ventured in to the wearables business by revealing the Apple Watch which unexpectedly (or expectedly, dependent on who you are) already sucks. From the concept, the iWatch as we love to call it, has nothing new to offer and cannot be compared to any of the presently existing smart watches. But the fact is, even Apple who have always claimed to be the inventors and influencers of technology have remarkably been coerced into adopting this. Oh and they’ve even launched bigger screen devices.

Why Now?

The wearable sector is rising. Is this something that was to be expected of the future and it was but a matter of time? Maybe. But we can’t always be sure of what to expect of the future. So that conclusion wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be rational to just say something like in the future we’ll have flying cars and virtual reality would be the order of the day. First we need to envision such stuff in our minds, find ways to build them, make sure they’re actually usable and efficient then thereafter make sure they are acceptable before finally concluding that the future will have them. So the wearables are here because we’ve acknowledged them. We’ve decided we can now have them and that’s why businesses are rising fast and in a rush to provide them to the ‘clearly readily available’ market. I bet you you want a wearable and it is just a matter of time before you push forward and acquire one. And that, simply, is why we are seeing the very many proclamations of new wearables from even companies we didn’t expect.

The wearables have been on the way. From sci-fi movies and very small ardent or rather futuristic concepts. It is small companies that have been moving forward to building certain wearables from the very past. The coming of big companies in to the market means that there is money. And there are prospects for many developers here. So if you’re a developer…

The Money

Google saw the rise of Android and the rise of wearables and found a way to work through both. Apple has also seen the opportunity and are also throwing in themselves with that queer logo of theirs that always triples prices of even sincerely useless stuff. LG, Motorola, Asus among others have come to the realisation and have tapped on to Android Wear to launch smartwatches. And so have Sony and even Samsung. However Samsung have also launched their own hand of wearables running Tizen OS. There is also Pebble who’ve been here for quite some time.

You’re reading this and probably asking yourself: now where is the money?

First of all, the money is mainly from the sales. The listed companies above all are working round the clock to launch hardware that is deemed acceptable to raise enough sales and profits. And they have to compete with each other in this properly new enterprise. LG has to struggle to beat Motorola and so forth. It will be interesting to see how the war on which company finally rises as the king of smartwatches comes to an end. I bet you some companies will slowly give up. Smart glasses are also soon coming up. Google dominates (rather) the smart glass industry and I really want to see how this also squares out. Will we see ‘more futuristic’ glasses in the near future?

Secondly, ads. By the way you know Google makes most of its income from ads? Ads are it! And we are all fervently awaiting the coming of ads to wearables. It is just a matter of time before you start seeing Coca-cola adverts on your smartwatch. And not only Coca-cola. All manners of ads will be filling your wearables soon. Extra ads from the usual ones we’ve been accustomed to.

Thirdly,

For Developers

If you are a developer, it is high time you start thinking of developing things for wearables. Start making apps and utilising this unknown future as soon as now. You’ll find yourself someday having one, or many, of the most essential or most used apps.

Fleksy for example brought the keyboard to the new Samsung watch. Though not yet as good and as developed (we love perfect and easy), having a keyboard on such small screens is not an easy fit and should be worth applause.

Developers are the ones with most advantage. And it is a high time we start seeing concepts of cool new apps that would totally blow our minds in their characteristic. Especially here in Africa where the technology market is still yet to be properly tapped in to. We all know it is Africa that holds the key to the ‘next billion’ in everything.