Verdantix Industrial Wearables Survey Reveals Spending Plans and Technology Priorities For 2020

Independent research firm Verdantix has released its inaugural global survey of 102 senior EHS managers at large firms across 13 industries and 23 countries. The survey results revealed that industrial wearable devices will see sizeable spend growth during 2020, with the largest increase in spend on hazardous environment and safe driving wearables.

"Our Industrial Wearables global survey provides unique data on the 2020 budgets, business priorities and technology preferences of managers responsible for corporate-wide EHS management strategies and initiatives at the world's largest firms," commented Verdantix Senior Analyst, Bill Pennington. "With the Verdantix Industrial Wearables survey data, corporate managers can benchmark against their peer group and tech vendors can align their 2020 go-to-market plans with the latest customer requirements."

The Verdantix report, ?Industrial Wearables Survey 2019: Budgets, Priorities & Tech Preferences,' key findings include:

The most important use case for utilizing wearable devices during 2020 will be for safe driving, with 77% of respondents planning to utilize wearable devices for this purpose, followed by wearables for hazardous environment monitoring (74%), worker ergonomics (55%) and vital signs monitoring (51%). For example, Optalert has developed wearable glasses that can track driver drowsiness and microsleeps to alert a driver. Kenzen has developed a wearable patch that can provide warnings in the event of elevated vital signs such as heartrate or body temperature.

Location monitoring wearables will see the highest usage among 70% of respondents, compared to wearable gas monitors (64%) and wearables to track workers' ergonomics and lifting (61%), with only 4% of respondents planning to use exoskeletons in the next 12 months. For example, Blackline Safety has developed a connected gas monitor product line, named G7, which acts as a combined digital gas monitor and lone worker monitoring solution.

Wearables for hazardous environment monitoring are among the devices for which 79% of respondents have the highest appetite for adoption over the next twelve months, followed by Safe driving (74%), lone worker communication (71%) and vital sign monitoring (64).

The greatest challenge to wearables utilization is the cost, with 49% of respondents stating that safe driving (54%) and vital sign monitoring wearables (49%) are too expensive in the current market.

To learn more view the Verdantix webinar: Industrial Wearables: Budgets, Priorities And Tech Preferences