electronics

CEA Sees Gold In Them Thar Resolutions

iPod armbandPeople have long made health and fitness a top priority for the new year's resolutions. Now technology and consumer electronics are playing an even bigger part.

According to a new study from the Consumer Electronics Association, more than a third (37%) of consumers expect to buy a fitness-related technology product in the coming year. The same study also revealed that nearly half of U.S. online consumers used some sort of fitness technology in the past year.

"We expect to see a lot more [purchases] in the next year," Colleen Lerro, a representative of the CEA, tells Marketing Daily. "With [the xBox 360 motion controller] Kinect and the other console products coming on the scene, we expect it to grow even further."

The term "fitness technology," however, does have a broad definition. Among the products cited by consumers that were used in the past year (or may be purchased in the next year) are pedometers, digital weight scales and other devices.

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However, the explosion of further connected devices (such as Nike's Fit-Plus system) and smartphone apps (almost an industry unto themselves), which allow users to track their progress, simply will likely increase the demand for such items in the future, Lerro says.

According to the survey of more than 1,300 U.S. adults conducted between July 26 and Aug. 5, more than three-quarters (75%) said they exercise without the guidance of professionals or trainers. Many of them, Lerro says, may be in the market for technologies that help fill that professional's role, such as guidance on goals or calorie intake. Many applications are already filling that need.

"Those are some of the devices people are using right now because they're so easy," she says. "The biggest thing people track [via technology] are the calories they burn; then how much they're taking in."

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