Amazon.com launches wearable technology portal

Just as it did for the smart home, the online retailer has launched a storefront dedicated to wearable technology devices. Focused as much on educating consumers as on selling products to them, The Amazon Wearable Technology portal went live Tuesday as part of its US site.It organizes devices across five categories, Fitness and Wellness, Healthcare Devices, Wearable Cameras, Smart Watches and Family, Kids and Pets, but it also features buying guides, a video library of tutorials, featured or spotlight products and an Editor’s Corner blog. In September Amazon launched a dedicated web portal for home automation and smart home products along the same lines, aiming to demystify the technology and help consumers to make informed decisions about the products that best suit their needs and their lifestyles.

There’s little doubt that the buzz around wearable tech devices is building and building, but so far that buzz doesn’t appear to have translated into huge consumer demand. With the exception of fitness trackers, the latest crop of smart watches has failed to generate much in the way of sales. Juniper Research estimates that 15 million wearable health and fitness devices were sold in 2013 and believes that by 2018 that number could be as high as 100 million.

However, when it comes to headsets and smart watches, uptake has been slow. Juniper believes that by 2018 10 million pairs of smart glasses, like Google Glass, could be shipping every year but puts the total number of shipments for the past year at just 90,000 devices. Meanwhile, if Strategy Analytic’s figures are accurate, just 1.9 million smart watches shipped over the whole of last year.