As technology is constantly developing, so does the fitness industry. Technological developments ranging from health and fitness apps and virtual workout class to activity tracking wearables have enabled us to track and access our health data everywhere, anywhere.
One of the rising trends in recent years has been wearables. More specifically, smartwatches and fitness trackers, which are dominated by following companies: Fitbit, Xiaomi, and Apple, respectively as of 2018 (Statista 2018). These leading tech companies might very soon face their less techy but very innovative apparel and shoe competitors such as Adidas AG and Under Armour.
Advancements in technologies will bring more personalization into the fitness industry than ever before. For the sake of this post, I will mention 3 patents from the article ‘The Future of Fitness’ (2018) that, in my opinion, will profoundly change the way we monitor our health.
1. Full-Body Fitness Monitoring System: patented by Adidas
Currently, sensors are attached to tracking devices. Adidas went beyond devices and acquired a patent to embed these sensors directly to clothing that allows for full body monitoring.
2. Self-Charging Smart Shoes: patented by Adidas
Another initiative by Adidas includes a solution to the wearables’ problem of charging. The company acquired a patent that allows it to build a sensor inside shoes that counts a person’s speed and steps.
3. Restaurant Nutrition Tracker: patented by Under Armour
With this patent, Under Armour would like to improve the accuracy of nutrition tracking. It has a potential to store accurate nutritional data of menu options and food items at restaurants based on GPS locations. The device should also suggest food places to meet nutrition targets.
These findings made me wonder: If self-charging smart shoes or the full-body fitness monitoring system become a success, will Adidas go after Fitbit? If Under Armour will improve nutrition tracking, should MyFitnessPal start worrying?
What do you think?
Sources:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/435944/quarterly-wearables-shipments-worldwide-market-share-by-vendor/
https://www.puregym.com/future-of-fitness/
http://blog.pitechnologies.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/2.png
Thanks for sharing these 3 interesting patents. I am a big fan of tracking performance through wearables since my motivation is significantly increased through goal setting and tracking. But I also do understand people who are more skeptical. The most common reasons for being skeptical are probably still privacy concerns as well as inconvenience to charge and wear these fitness devices. Hence, I do see a high market potential for full-body fitness monitoring systems which are directly included in sport clothes as well as the self-charging smart shoes. However, I do not see Under Armour’s patent of the restaurant nutrition tracker finding high acceptance among consumers. On the one hand, tracking nutrition and calories is still a lot of effort and manual work and the people who nevertheless do track, do also take on the effort when going to a restaurant. On the other hand, people who do not take on the effort to track nutrients will also not care about the nutritions when going to a restaurant but rather just want to enjoy a nice meal. What do you think? Do you see yourself using any of the patents in the next years?
Hi Trung, thanks for your post! As I am a fitness fanatic, I was really interested in this read. Technological advancements have made the fitness industry a very interesting one. New fitness apps are created everyday which makes the industry very dynamic. However, indeed, there are a few players in the industry with so much power (Nike, Adidas, UnderArmour), that I believe that these will continue to dominate the market. Their economies of scale enable them to exploit those patents and smaller players like Fitbit and MyFitnessPal should start worrying I think. Staying innovative in this fast-moving industry is therefore essential in order to survive.
Thank you for sharing the nice article, Trung! I personally think that the tracking of your own fitness is an interesting topic, and that this market will continue to grow as people are getting more interested in tracking personal fitness data. Hence, I think that wearable technology will be a success in future as well. I can also imagine that those patented technologies will replace existing tracking methods as soon as they are well developed due to their higher degree of customer centricity.
Dear Trung,
Thank you for this interesting blog post! I think a lot of people are interested in this subject, because fitness is becoming a more important part of our lives. For example, the work-pressure is increasing and people want to lose some fat. Besides, the gym is a place where people meet each other. I think especially FitBit is in danger of getting new competitors like Adidas with their patented systems. MyFitnessPall will not experience that much competition, because it is also part of UnderArmour. I think more and more people are starting to use these technologies like fitbit and it will definitely improve their health and performance.
Besides, I came across a very interesting article: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/the-future-of-fitness-technology-workout-les-mills-virutal-reality-a8018091.html. It describes some technologies that are currently evolving in the fitness industry, like the FitBit and VR in group lessons. I am wondering how you think about the technologies mentioned in this article and which ones will make the most impact?
Kind regards,
Leander Overbeeke