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Analysts have dismissed wearable tech as unlikely to hit its stride during this year.
Speaking to Reuters, several of the industry experts said that while wearable technology such as smartwatches and smartglasses could blossom in the future, 2014 was likely to be a year of experimentation necessary for the advancement of the sector.
"2014 will be more a year of attempts than of successful products,” said Carolina Milanesi, a consumer tech analyst at Kantar Worldpanel.
“For a lot of manufacturers it will be a matter of waiting to see what Apple does."
"For wearables to finally match up with the hype, [they have] to be a true solution, where it isn’t about the technology – it’s about what the technology enables you to do, something you couldn’t do before," said Mike Bell, a senior executive at Intel.
Intel itself announced a concept for ‘Jarvis’, a smart voice-activated earpiece which operates like a personal assistant, and a smart bracelet, which had no further details revealed.
The expansion and experimentation of wearable tech during 2014 is vital if devices hope to excite customers, rather than becoming a monotonous clump of identical products, some observers said.
"I have 20 different photos [of wearable devices], but if I look at the pictures I couldn’t tell you which product is from which vendor. They all look the same," said Stacy Rasgon, semiconductor analyst at Bernstein, who photographed every wearable device she saw at CES 2014.
"[However,] wearables sound like a great idea and there’s going to be a lot of experimentation. People are throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks."
