• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, October 13, 2016

Another holiday season, another amount of large spending on technological gifts.

As retailers stock up for the holiday rush, there will be plenty of Internet of Things items on the shelves this year.

Technology gifts have accounted for more than 73% of holiday gift spending each year for the past 15 years, according to the annual planned shopping tally by the Consumer Technology Association.

The difference this year is that the percentage of U.S. adults planning to buy technology gifts (68%) is the highest in the last 10 years. That’s about 170 million people.

And those people plan to buy lots of IoT products as gifts this year, with more than a quarter (27%) planning to buy wearables. Almost a quarter (24%) also plan to buy smart home gadgetry. Here are the popular choices for purchase, according to the CTA telephone survey of 1,000 U.S. adults:

• 17% -- Smartwatch
• 15% -- Fitness tracker
• 11% -- Connected toy
• 10% -- Smart thermostat
• 10% -- VR headset
• 9% -- Heart rate monitor
• 9% -- Drone
• 8% -- Home camera
• 6% -- GPS sports watch
• 6% -- Digital assistant device (like Amazon Echo)
• 6% -- Pet-related tech
• 6% -- Connected sports equipment
• 5% -- Robotic vacuum
• 5% -- Smart tracker tags
• 5% -- Smart door lock
• 2% -- Connected scale

While the IoT shopping list is quite vast this year, what people are buying for others may not be what they would like others to be buying for them.

For example, while smartwatches and fitness trackers top the list of what people say they will buy for others, neither is even close to prominent on what they would like to receive. Here’s what they say they would like:

• 8% -- Smartphone
• 8% -- TV (smart, no doubt)
• 7% -- Tablet
• 5% -- Videogame console
• 3% -- Smartwatch
• 2% -- VR headset
• 2% -- Home robotic vacuum
• 2% -- Portable GPS

Interestingly, right after the holidays, the annual CES International show will be held over several days in Las Vegas. That’s the traditional place where much of the IoT devices for the next year will be introduced.

That will instantly make all the IoT devices bought this holiday season last year’s model.