‘Struggling’ Startup Sees $1 Trillion Smart Watch Opportunity
Sensorstream, which calls itself a “struggling” San Francisco-based startup, sees a $1 trillion opportunity in smart watches and their ecosystem of components, its founder, Tom Rapko, told us. Sensorstream just landed a design patent from the Patent and Trademark Office for a circular smart watch case that’s buttonless with interior threading “to support an upgradable modular electronics package,” and the company is looking for partners, Rapko said.
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"The wearables business is going to go the way of a garage startup” reminiscent of Apple’s founding, Rapko said. “Even though the Valley is hugely software-centric, I think there’s a huge opportunity in the hardware space for wearables, and in particular, smart watches,” he said of developer work currently happening in the Silicon Valley on behalf of wearables.
Rapko thinks smart watches will “drive disruptive innovations in social networking, entertainment and commerce,” he said. Sensorstream’s smart watch case is called Pi, the company said. It differs from traditional watch cases in that it’s devoid of all external buttons, to protect it from the elements, it said. The threaded design on its interior promotes adaptability to modular electronics that can be fitted in and enhances “the ergonomic contours of the smart watch to hug the wearer’s wrist for enhanced stability,” it said.
Smart watches have the “potential to rival” or exceed the most successful consumer electronics “ever released” in terms of fast adoption rates, Rapko said. Form factors “will help shape consumer adoption of smart watches,” he said. “Aesthetically, we feel a circular display is superior to the dreary square. Frankly, the end game is fusing the look and feel of a Swiss luxury watch with the core functionality of a smart phone."
Similar superlatives dot the Sensorstream website (http://bit.ly/1u5qMUZ) where Rapko is hoping to lure partners. “If existing forecasts are correct, wearable technology will become the largest electronics market ever to exist given its potential utility, wearability, and existing customer base of over 7 billion users,” the site said. “The smart watch portion, if successfully harnessed, offers successful businesses the opportunity to create a $1 Trillion industry within the decade by capturing a portion of the ever-increasing number of potential smart watch wearers. In terms of scale, it should rival the desktop, laptop, smart phone, tablet, and TV markets COMBINED. There are a lot of wrists in this world, and a smart watch makes sense on all of them!”