可穿戴式设备虽有戏 健康腕带追踪时代或将衰落

The news broke on a recent Friday night: Nike Fires Majority of FuelBand Team, Will Stop Making Wearable Hardware. It was a shock to just about anyone who had bought, worked on, wrote about, or invested in the white-hot category called "wearables."

不久前的一个周五晚上爆出了一个重大资讯：耐克公司（Nike）炒掉了FuelBand团队的大部分成员，将停止生产可穿戴设备。对买过、用过、报道过或投资过所谓“可穿戴设备”这款炙手可热产品的人来说，这个消息都不啻于晴天霹雳。

Hailed as the next big platform in computing, wearable "smart" devices like fitness tracking bracelets, clip-on heart monitors, Google Glass, smartwatches, and even smart wigs (yes, smart wigs) suddenly looked a lot less interesting.

这样一来，一度被捧为下一代计算大平台的可穿戴“智能”设备，如健康追踪腕带、卡扣式心脏监护仪、谷歌眼镜、智能手表，甚至还有智能假发（没错，就是智能假发）突然之间就魅力大减。

If Nike (NKE), which had sold an estimated $33 million worth of FuelBand bracelets in 2013, employing 200 people and even running an accelerator program around the device, was no longer interested, did this spell disaster for the category? What does Nike know that the rest of us didn't?

2013年，耐克公司售出了约3300万美元的FuelBand腕带，为此它招了200名员工，甚至围绕这个设备开展了一个加速计划。如果它都对可穿戴设备没兴趣了，这是不是意味着这种设备气数将尽了？耐克又是怎么知道我们没兴趣了呢？

Since the news, the top wearable makers have openly touted the future of their business. This week at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York, Hosain Rahman, CEO of Jawbone, said his company will expand the amount of data it tracks and services around it. Jawbone's UP band accounts for 19% of the fitness tracking device market. Meanwhile Fitbit, which dominates the category with 68% market share, made a short statement to CNET that it's been doing this for seven years, guys. Fitbit, with products like the Flex, One, and Zip, remains confident, "despite some of the recent sensationalized headlines."

这个消息曝出后，一些可穿戴设备顶级制造商就开始公开造势，大肆渲染自己业务的美好未来。本周在纽约举行的TechCrunch Disrupt大会上，Jawbone公司首席执行官侯赛因o拉赫曼称，公司将扩展它追踪的数据量，增加服务种类。Jawbone的UP腕带现在已占健康追踪市场19%的份额。同时，以68%的市场份额雄踞市场老大的Fitbit公司则对科技资讯网（CNET）做了一个简短声明，称自己这么做早已有七年之久了。凭借Flex、One和Zip这些产品，“尽管最近冒出了几条耸人听闻的头条资讯，”Fitbit照样自信满满。

Even Nike has clarified the initial report, saying it is not giving up on all of fitness tracking, only the hardware part. Nike will stop producing FuelBands itself, but it will continue to build software and fitness tracking apps for phones, smartwatches, and whatever other form factor smart devices take.

耐克也站出来澄清最初的报道，称不是要放弃所有的健康追踪业务，只是放弃硬件罢了。耐克将不再生产FuelBand，但还会继续为智能手机、智能手表以及各种智能设备打造软件和健康追踪应用。

Nonetheless, it's clear the fitness tracking and wearables need to evolve beyond their initial offerings. Many of the fitness trackers in their current form are large, unattractive, uncomfortable bracelets. But an even bigger issue is what these devices do. As my colleague JP Mangalindan wrote earlier this week, his quest to become a quant junkie failed when the available options required him to use disparate systems that didn't talk to each other:

不过，现有的健康追踪和可穿戴设备显然需要改进。现在很多健康追踪器都是又大又难看、戴起来也不舒服的腕带。而更大的问题在于它们的实际功能。正如我的同事JPo曼格林丹本周初所写的那样，他想变成数字达人的愿望落了空，因为这些设备上的可用选项要求他使用完全不同、彼此无法兼容的系统：

One day, I just stopped using everything. I had invested hundreds of dollars into hardware and software and cobbled them together so I could to get a holistic picture of my day. But the process felt too complicated for its own good -- a wristband for sleeping, another for the daytime. An app for eating, and then another running. Why couldn't there be one piece of hardware and software to rule them all?

有一天，我开始停止使用任何设备。本来我花了好几百美元买硬件买软件，再把它们生拉硬凑到一起，以为这样就能全面了解我每天的健康信息了。但实现这个目标的过程感觉真是太费事了——睡觉需要一种腕带，白天需要另外一种，吃饭需要一种应用，跑步又得用别的。为什么就不能有种软硬件一体的设备来执行所有这些任务呢？

Beyond that, merely knowing how many steps you've taken each day isn't all that compelling to a large, mainstream audience. It's why one-third of consumers have abandoned their devices, according to a report by Endeavor Partners. Industry insiders say the number of inactive fitness tracking devices is likely much higher than that.

除了这一点，对绝大多数人来说，光知道自己每天走了多少步其实没什么吸引力。咨询公司Endeavor Partners的一份报告称，这也是为什么有三分之一的消费者没再用这类设备。而业内人士称，实际停用的健康追踪设备数量很可能比这多得多。

For wearables and fitness trackers to become a permanent part of our lives, the devices must become "need to have," not "nice to have." The only way to do that is to offer better functionality. I spoke with Sonny Vu, CEO of Misfit, about the future of the category. His company was called Misfit Wearables until recently, when it dropped the word "wearables" from its name.

可穿戴设备和健康追踪器要想成为我们生活中不可或缺的一部分，它们就必须成为“必不可少的”、而不是“有了也不错”的时髦玩意。要实现这个目标，唯一的办法是具备更好的功能。我曾和Misfit公司的首席执行官桑尼o乌探讨过这种产品今后的发展。他的公司直到最近还叫Misfit Wearables，然后才去掉wearables这个词。

Vu said he expects fitness trackers to be a tiny part of the overall wearables industry. They'll be like iPods and GPS trackers -- useful to some, but no longer top sellers, and mostly replaced by smartphone apps. Fitness trackers will likely be killed by the smartwatch, Vu says.

乌表示，他认为健康追踪设备今后只会占可穿戴设备市场的一小部分。它们将像iPod和GPS追踪器一样——对有些人有用，但再也不会畅销热卖，而且它们中的大多数都将被智能手机应用所取代。他说，它们很可能被智能手表给干掉。

His company produced a fitness tracking wearable device for practice, even as he knows the category will quickly peak and decline. "We did it because we're being opportunistic," he says. "This is where things are going now, and we're exercising our muscles as an organization to build and ship a product."

就算他明知健康追踪可穿戴设备市场会很快大起大落，他们公司还是投产了，目的主要是为了练手。他说：“我们这么做主要是为了抓住机会。它是现在的发展潮流，我们作为一家公司生产它并投放市场可以小试身手。”

The next step in the evolution of wearable devices will require a more compelling use case. It will need to pass the "turn around test," he says. That means, would you turn around for it if you were halfway to work and realized you'd forgotten it? Most people would turn around for their phone, keys, or wallet. But they wouldn't turn around for their activity monitors.

可穿戴设备要进一步发展需要有更具吸引力的使用案例。他说，它必须经过“转身测验”的考验。这就是说，如果人们在上班路上忘了带它，他们会不会转身回家去拿？大多数人会转身回家拿手机、钥匙和钱包。但他们不会为了这些活动监控设备转身回去。

"Fitness tracking is just not a compelling use case," Vu says. "We makers haven't been able to make it sufficiently compelling. It doesn't pass the turn around test. It doesn't even come close."

乌说：“健康追踪还不是太有吸引力的使用案例。我们这些厂家还没法让它具有足够的吸引力，它没法通过转身测验，甚至连接近这个水平都做不到。”

Vu is already scheming up ideas to make wearable devices more compelling.

不过他已经在策划让可穿戴设备更有吸引力的创意了。

One way to pass the turn around test is with "persistent identity." Better than fingerprint recognition, wearable devices would use a person's heart waves to identify them. This proposition becomes compelling, "if it identifies you, opens your car, turns on your lights and you can use it to pay, all with your physiological signature," he says, "and once your take it off of your body, it is no longer a secure device."

要通过转身测验的一个办法是让它拥有“固定身份”。比指纹识别更好的一点是，可穿戴设备可以用人们的心电图来识别用户。他说：“如果它能用你的生理信号认出你，打开车门，开灯，还能付账，一旦离开你的身体，它就不再安全好用，”那这种功能将会很有吸引力。

Vu said this would be similar to Disney's MagicBands, the bracelets that allow families visiting a Disney (DIS) theme park to check in, unlock their hotel rooms, enter parks, pay for goods, and connect to their photos online, all by scanning a bracelet. MagicBands essentially replace keys and wallets within Disney's properties. "That is something I could get behind if they could make it a little nicer and it worked outside of the Magic Kingdom and in the rest of the world," Vu says.

乌说这将会和迪斯尼公司（Disney）的魔力腕带（Magicband）很像。这条腕带只要扫描一下，就能让一家人去迪斯尼主题公园玩时办理入住、打开旅馆房门、进入公园、买东西、上网查看照片。实际上在迪斯尼所属的领地里，这条魔力腕带就取代了钥匙和钱包。乌称：“如果迪斯尼公司能把它做得更漂亮些，它还能在魔法王国以外的其他地方用上的话，我一定会力挺它。”

That's one direction the hot category of wearable devices is likely to go. But for now, Vu is sticking with fitness trackers. Launched in the fourth quarter of 2013, Misfit sold 200,000 devices, a number that's increasing each quarter. He expects that, like the market for iPods and GPS trackers, fitness trackers like his will decline, and some hardware makers will follow Nike's footsteps, focusing on smartwatch software over hardware.

这就是现在大热的可穿戴设备一个可能的发展方向。但现在乌还得继续做健康追踪设备。Misfit的这个设备2013年第四季度首发，现在已经卖出了20万个，而且每个季度的销量都在增长。他预计，和iPod及GPS追踪器的市场一样，像他这种健康追踪器的销售也会逐渐下降，一些硬件厂商也会步耐克的后尘，最终致力开发智能手表的软件而不是硬件。

The era of fitness tracking devices might be waning. But for wearables, it's still early days.

健康追踪设备的时代可能将日渐衰落，但对可穿戴设备来说，日子才刚开始。