Quietly deal with uncracked wearable devices

The combination of soft and hard has become a recognized direction in the industry, and sports and health wearable devices have ushered in an outbreak this year. In early May, Fitbit’s third-generation pedometer product, the Flex bracelet, was officially launched. According to foreign media, Nike’s second-generation Fuelband sports wristband will also be released in the near future. After returning to China, Jawbone UP of Yi Xun.com's agent quickly sold off the goods. Handan Net, which was just launched in cooperation with Baidu, also attracted a lot of attention. According to “Commercial Value”, the next two months Within the company, there will be a number of companies launching sports wearable devices, including Maimai, the second generation pedometer product of the start-up company Damai Net, and Acorn International, which is well-known for its best-selling products such as back-behind and OZing. It will also launch its own step counter product "Flash Point Flash Unit" in the near future.

For a time, sports wearable equipment is extremely lively in China, but behind the prosperity, the "dead spots" of sports wearable devices have gradually been exposed.

Bottleneck: Rely on the user?

The pedometer itself is not a novelty. Its history can be traced back decades ago, but the traditional pedometer has not been able to form a climate for many years. The underlying reason behind this is that it is impossible for users to establish a habit of use, except for a handful of people. Very self-disciplined people, the vast majority of users using traditional pedometer cycle is difficult for more than 1 month.

Fitbit's use of Internet thinking has improved this, greatly extending the user's life cycle.

The greatest disruption to the traditional pedometer products of the new generation of sports wearable devices is the introduction of elements of socialism and the formation of a competitive atmosphere based on the relationship of friends, thereby urging users to exercise. This made the past boring sports interesting, and eventually made the sports wearable devices popular.

However, unfortunately, Fitbit's life cycle is several times better than that of traditional pedometers, but few users can continue to use it for more than half a year. Among the many users that reporters have come into contact with very early in the use of devices such as Fitbit, there are still a few who can still insist on using them.

Why is this?

After the rise of social networks, social networking has become almost a "dumpster" of all-embracing diseases. It seems that as long as the social sharing function is added, any product can be popular. But this is not the case. Not all products are suitable for sharing. Not all users need to share.

Although everyone says "soft and hard", most companies are actually "hard and soft." In addition to generating some analysis charts, the "soft" part is based on user motion data. PK among friends or communities, and then form a sports leaderboard, this approach does attract some users, but there are still a lot of users indifferent. The basic question is, why do users use their own data and others PK?

Of course, many companies have realized this and started to use social methods to motivate users. It is more common to win medals and bonus points. To be fair, these methods are very old-fashioned. A slightly new way is to combine with charity. The website promises that the user's exercise amount will reach a certain degree and make a donation to charity, but this method also lacks enough attraction for the user.

At present, most companies are still in the staking-environment stage, and a large number of new users have caused the loss of old users to be insignificant. However, this is a problem that threatens the development of the industry. If you do not take the issue of user churn seriously, The prospects of today's sports wear devices will only be short-lived.

Missing parts of the chain

How do sports wearables solve the problem of user churn? To figure this out, one needs to return to the question first. What is the original intention of users using sports wearables?

The answer is actually very simple, that is for health.

Whether it is a traditional pedometer or a new generation of sports wearables, their most important function is to realize the quantification of the user's exercise behavior, but to meet the health needs of users, there is only one of the “sports”. Dimensional data is not enough.

For example, one user uses Fitbit for the purpose of losing weight (in fact, this seems to be the reason why most users try to use sports wear devices). For him, the only reason he can use Fitbit is that he can actually weigh. decline.

In order to understand one's own weight, Fitbit's pedometer is not enough, and users need at least one more name. In short, the two dimensions of "sports" and "health" must be opened up. Only when the sports wearable device can really create value for the user can the user be used.

Both Fitbit and the company have realized this and have introduced a healthy scale with a Bluetooth 4.0 module. However, such a solution is clearly not perfect. On the one hand, the purchase of an electronic scale requires users to pay extra costs, which increases the user's threshold for use, and current electronic scales cannot track user's weight changes in real time. On the other hand, the basic logic of weight loss lies in the fact that the user consumes more energy per day than the energy consumed. Fitbit can quantify the energy consumed by the user every day, but it cannot quantify the energy intake, and there is no device to monitor it. The energy intake of meals, in other words, there is an important missing link in the chain of weight loss, so not many people can rely on equipment such as Fitbit to achieve weight loss goals. After all, if you can't stop speaking, light sports are useless.

Of course, more importantly, not all users of sports wearable devices have the desire to lose weight, and more users value the health of other body function indicators such as blood pressure and heart conditions. Now, there is almost no A portable wearable device can provide a mature solution to the needs of this group of people, which also greatly reduces the value of sports wearable devices. If these problems are not solved fundamentally, it will be difficult for users to really establish the habit of using sports wearable devices.

Sports wearables are indeed a good entry point, because its threshold is not high, so many companies are now gearing up for a share, but the more this time, the more you need a sober mind, we need to understand The point is, at least for now, the space available for commercial development of sports wearable devices is still very limited, and it is not easy to really earn money.