• by Les Luchter , August 19, 2024

Consumer adoption of smart wearables is now nearly half (48%) of U.S. Internet households, Kristen Hanich, director of research for Parks Associates, told a Connected Health Summit audience Thursday, signaling that the category is “crossing the chasm” -- or moving from early adopters to the mainstream.

Five years ago, “adoption was half of what it is today,” she noted, adding that as the category has evolved, consumers are increasingly turning to service subscriptions on top of the cost of the wearables themselves.

One third of wearable owners now have such subscriptions, Hanich said. These are led by cellular plans, but “fitness and lifestyle subscriptions, premium health insights, and health coaching services are in demand and growing,” she explained.

The wearables market is led by smart watches, “owned and used by roughly a third of U.S. internet households,” Hanich reported, followed by smart scales, and then connected exercise equipment. 

Moving up, though, are smart rings and hybrid watches (which look like dumb analog watches despite being smart). Indeed, she said that 12% of households are likely to purchase a smart ring in the next six months, a figure just about equal to those looking to purchase both hybrid watches and GPS sports watches. Smart watches and fitness trackers still lead in consumer want lists, however.

Hanich pointed out that smart rings and hybrid watches have the advantage of being screenless devices.

Elaborating on that point, Jason Oberfest, vice president of healthcare for smart ring leader Oura, told the audience his company sees “a growing trend towards people not necessarily wanting another screen in their lives…something strapped to their wrist inundating them with perhaps stressful news headlines and work messages throughout the day.”

Not having a screen also helps smart rings have much longer charge times than other wearables, Oberfest said during his keynote talk at the Connected Health event, which was titled "Health and Home: Modern Lifestyles.”

Another advantage of smart rings, he said, is that they’re “much more comfortable” for users to wear while sleeping, which helps lead to higher-quality longitudinal data.

While Oura is continuing with its D2C subscription-based consumer model, Oberfest noted that the company plans to increase its B2B partnerships, including those with primary care physicians.

He cited the successful example of  New York City doctor Florence Comite using Oura “to identify what she determined to be a severe and potentially life threatening case of sleep apnea in one of her patients.”

Other Oura partners include clinical research teams, “whether that's supporting new drug development or new medical device development.” Research teams, he said, “really appreciate” the data gleamed from Oura users wearing their rings “from 23 to 24 hours daily.” 

Oura also hopes to be “paired with different treatment protocols to support patients on their journey,” Oberfest said.

In additional to sleep apnea, that could include users of the booming GLP-1 weight loss medications like Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro. 

Noting that people on GLP-1s often come off the drugs due to such factors as expense and side effects, and that then “you might see two thirds or so of the weight getting put back on,” Oberfest asked the audience to “imagine a scenario where a tool like Oura can be used to support patients during those care protocols to cement healthier habits during treatment, but then also to sustain those habits longer term.”