NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – While major smartwatch makers are enabling payments from their high-end devices, and there might be an announcement of another major wearables maker supporting payments at next month’s CES trade event, progress is slow for the technology to move to the range of lower-end smartwatches, fitness bands and such passive devices as rings, fobs and bracelets.
A difficult business model for wearables makers and challenges provisioning and getting the devices certified to enable payments are some of the problems wearable OEMs face.
And in the end, adoption of payments wearables relies on both take-up by consumers of wearables in general, and consumers agreeing to use those devices to pay. The news is mixed on this front.
