A look at the wearable activity tracker industry: a flourishing environment for the Lympo ecosystem Lympo Follow Apr 5, 2018 · 3 min read

At their core, wearable fitness trackers, also known as activity trackers, are wearable devices that monitor and record a person’s fitness activity and health data. It is a simple yet a revolutionary concept which is truly taking the sports and wellness sector into the age of big data.

These smartphone connected devices are a relatively new industry, and they include a variety of different form factors and functionalities — ranging from simply counting steps to also logging heart rate or even blood pressure.

In the strictest sense, data logging wearable devices aren’t exactly new technology — the first digital pedometer was invented back in 1965 in Japan, by Dr. Yoshiro Hatano, a professor at the Kyushu University of Health and Welfare, who was looking for ways to encourage people to walk more and stay fit.

Several factors lead to the current meteoric rise in popularity of wearable devices. The main reason being, of course, the widespread global use of smartphones. This has allowed wearables not to store all the logged data onboard and today it is instead continuously transmitted to the smartphone, which acts as the central data storage and analysis hub. This technological trend has allowed wearables to become smaller and more comfortable to wear.

Technological advances in material design, sensor and battery tech deserve a mention too. In recent years, rechargeable batteries have become small and durable enough to allow most popular wearables to be used without recharging for extended periods of time. The ongoing engineering efforts to miniaturize electronics also allow to cram a lot of increasingly advanced technology into compact and lightweight cases. And increased competition in the market means that wearables are constantly becoming cheaper and so — more available to regular consumers worldwide.

According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), the overall wearables market is expected to grow from 113.2 million shipments in 2017 to 222.3 million in 2021, with key growth happening in the smartwatch category, as opposed to basic wristbands, such as the Xiaomi Mi Band or Fitbit Charge. This is almost two times more devices in just a few years!

Smart clothes with integrated trackers and legwear are a whole different area of innovation. However, according to Futuremarketinsights.com, these segments, in comparison to wrist wear, will only experience moderate growth in the near future.

Today wearable devices already collect a massive amount of data, and it is growing every day. Despite the fact, currently, this data serves to provide valuable insights into their activity and health to individual users, but there is no infrastructure in place to voluntarily share it with various companies, such as sports and health service providers and get various rewards and incentives in return. And so the question holds — why can’t our data do more?

Well, it can! And this is exactly what we are working to achieve here at Lympo. Paired with the growth of the global wearables industry, the Lympo ecosystem will enable users to provide individualized, verified, self-generated data and receive LYM tokens in return. The user will then be able to spend it on various goods as well as services in the Lympo marketplace, which will eventually encompass a network of health, wellness, and sports services and goods. As we like to say — health is your biggest reward, and so, Lympo will enable and motivate millions of people to actively participate in a complete ecosystem of health and wellness.