2015 is already being tout­ed as ‘the year of the con­sumer’ and nowhere was a sense of this more preva­lent then at CES 2015. One clear trend that emerged at the show: a grow­ing momen­tum for smart, con­nect­ed devices, each look­ing to estab­lish a new prece­dent in improv­ing the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence. New tech­nol­o­gy for the health care indus­try was par­tic­u­lar­ly excit­ing. What will the intro­duc­tion of con­nect­ed devices bring to the indus­try, and why should brands and providers adapt to the immi­nent change?

The Con­sumer Elec­tron­ics Show has typ­i­cal­ly been dom­i­nat­ed by estab­lished tech­nol­o­gy play­ers, but now even health and fit­ness brands such as Adi­das, New Bal­ance, and L’O­re­al are look­ing to meet con­sumer demands for new tech­nol­o­gy and inno­va­tion in fields such as wear­ables.

Today, smart brands across indus­tries are look­ing to zero in on the intri­ca­cies on the way con­sumers use and expe­ri­ence prod­ucts, cre­at­ing a gen­er­a­tion of new, con­nect­ed devices that are designed to empow­er and com­ple­ment our abil­i­ty to ful­fill mod­ern, dig­i­tal lives.

Brands are look­ing bring us dig­i­tal expe­ri­ences in new and inno­v­a­tive ways, beyond the smart­phone.

One indus­try see­ing such a rev­o­lu­tion is con­sumer health care prod­ucts. Aller­gy pens, baby bot­tles, hel­mets and more prod­ucts are being rein­vent­ed, dig­i­tized, and con­nect­ed in an effort to improve a par­tic­u­lar aspect of con­sumers’ lives.

Are we set to expe­ri­ence a “dig­i­tal renais­sance” – a boom of inno­va­tion where every­day devices are rein­vent­ed and smart, con­nect­ed devices? If so, the ques­tion is how should health care brands pre­pare for the poten­tial dis­rup­tion a new Inter­net of Things could bring to the indus­try.

Connected Devices Set To Change Consumer Health Care

The con­di­tions are giv­ing way to the cre­ation of many new prod­ucts in the health care indus­try. Prod­ucts that are inno­v­a­tive, con­nect­ed, and unique, cater­ing to, and focus­ing in on par­tic­u­lar needs and require­ments of patients and con­sumers. Let’s look at a few.

Epipen

EpiPen is a device designed for those who suf­fer from aller­gic reac­tions. Unlike non-dig­i­tal­ly enabled devices, when con­nect­ed to the asso­ci­at­ed Veta app, users will be alert­ed if they have for­got­ten their EpiPen, and the Veta app can even warn fam­i­ly if the user is hav­ing an aller­gic reac­tion.

EpiPen has the poten­tial to save lives and is a great exam­ple of the way tech­no­log­i­cal­ly-enabled devices can be used to seam­less­ly improve con­sumer expe­ri­ences.

Breathometer

While it’s far from life or death, anoth­er gad­get on show at CES seeks to save users embar­rass­ment when they’re suf­fer­ing from a spot of bad breath. Cal­i­forn­ian com­pa­ny Breath­ome­ter have exhib­it­ed their mint breath­a­lyz­er, a device that enables users to mea­sure the amount of volatile sul­phur com­pounds and bac­te­ria in the mouth.

As was the case with Epipen, the device seam­less­ly con­nects with a user’s smart­phone via a Blue­tooth con­nec­tion. Using one lets users know when they ought to fresh­en up or need a drink.

Baby GlGl

Even babies are get­ting con­nect­ed. Baby GlGl, from Slow Con­trol, (short for “Glug Glug”) is a smart baby bot­tle that does every­thing from mea­sur­ing how much a baby is drink­ing, to indi­cat­ing the per­fect angle to feed a baby to min­i­mize air bub­bles.

Concept Cycling Helmet

Anoth­er piece of tech­nol­o­gy look­ing out for con­sumers’ well being, and one that made quite a few waves at CES, was the con­cept cyclist hel­met from Vol­vo and POC – a device that con­nects to sim­i­lar­ly enabled Vol­vo cars that can warn dri­vers when a cyclist is approach­ing, or rid­ing pre­car­i­ous­ly in a vehi­cle’s blind spot.

The device hopes to use the pow­er of con­nect­ed tech­nol­o­gy to reduce the num­ber of cycling relat­ed acci­dents.

Is Health Care Ready For An ‘Internet Of Things’?

From a con­sumer per­spec­tive, the short answer is yes. It’s no sur­prise that a con­sid­er­able num­ber of new prod­ucts unveiled at CES served the health care indus­try; recent research has pro­vid­ed strong indi­ca­tions that con­sumers are will­ing to try new prod­ucts that serve to mon­i­tor and ben­e­fit their health.

The chal­lenge is per­haps more com­pli­cat­ed for brands oper­at­ing with­in the indus­try. Inno­v­a­tive new con­sumer prod­ucts are show­ing that health care is poten­tial­ly approach­ing a new era which could see a shift in which con­sumers receive care from ded­i­cat­ed prac­ti­tion­ers and health care insti­tu­tions, toward a more per­son­al­ized, informed, and pre­ven­ta­tive form of care with­in their own homes, empow­ered by dig­i­tal devices able to mon­i­tor and guide con­sumers.

At the moment it may be inde­pen­dent star­tups that are cap­i­tal­iz­ing on the oppor­tu­ni­ty to serve con­sumer appetite for new prod­ucts. How­ev­er, suc­cess here pre­cludes greater uptake with­in estab­lished health care insti­tu­tions and indus­try play­ers, which will (as all sec­tors have already or will soon do so) be sub­ject to the changes of dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion that con­sumers have come to demand expect.

There remains, how­ev­er, a chal­lenge for the health care indus­try. Health care, per­haps by virtue of a long estab­lished author­i­ty and tra­di­tion, has per­haps been shield­ed from the change that dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy has brought to con­sumer lives.

“What health care orga­ni­za­tions must under­stand is that patients are also con­sumers, and they have been inter­act­ing with brands and busi­ness­es via dig­i­tal chan­nels for years, if not decades. They have a high lev­el of expec­ta­tion for things like: user expe­ri­ence, con­tent and util­i­ty, and rel­e­vance,” said John Simp­son, pres­i­dent of Dig­i­tal Health Strate­gies. “Health care orga­ni­za­tions and brands must deliv­er on all of these demands because they are not only com­pet­ing with each oth­er; they are com­pet­ing with all of the oth­er dig­i­tal mes­sages, prod­ucts and ser­vices that con­sumers receive from oth­er brands and orga­ni­za­tions on a dai­ly basis.”

Ulti­mate­ly it paints a sim­ple mes­sage for health care providers and it’s one, accord­ing to Simp­son, “that oth­er indus­tries have been say­ing (and liv­ing) for a long time: Your patients now hold sig­nif­i­cant pow­er and you must view them as an active part­ner in the deliv­ery of care. The onus is on health care orga­ni­za­tions to be relent­less­ly user-focused, and to put prod­ucts in front of con­sumers at the right time, on the right plat­form, and with a clear val­ue propo­si­tion.”

It means that health care as an indus­try needs to meet the same lev­el of expec­ta­tions that con­sumers are expe­ri­enc­ing from mar­ket-lead­ing brands from oth­er indus­tries, to empow­er “a qual­i­ty user expe­ri­ence, and then proac­tive­ly pro­vide [con­sumers] with rel­e­vant, valu­able con­tent and util­i­ty on an ongo­ing basis” Simp­son said.

Customer-Centricity Is Key For Connected Devices To Succeed

The prod­ucts unveiled at CES are excit­ing, but more than ever they need to fit in to an indus­try that is able to sup­port their exis­tence. Brands need to pro­vide the very high­est lev­el of cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty, to pro­mote chan­nels for con­nec­tiv­i­ty, engage­ment, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and to ensure new prod­ucts adhere to the val­ues – sim­plic­i­ty, speed, and ease of usabil­i­ty – that the dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion has instilled with­in con­sumers. As Michael E. Porter’s Har­vard Busi­ness Review arti­cle, “How Smart, Con­nect­ed Prod­ucts Are Trans­form­ing Com­pe­ti­tion”, indi­cat­ed in Novem­ber 2014:

“As with the inter­net itself, smart, con­nect­ed prod­ucts reflect a whole new set of tech­no­log­i­cal pos­si­bil­i­ties that have emerged. But the rules of com­pe­ti­tion and com­pet­i­tive advan­tage remain the same. Nav­i­gat­ing the world of smart, con­nect­ed prod­ucts requires that com­pa­nies under­stand these rules bet­ter than ever.”

The oppor­tu­ni­ty for health care brands will be in con­nect­ing inno­v­a­tive prod­ucts with the con­tent and chan­nels con­sumers are accus­tomed to via dig­i­tal chan­nels, in order to raise aware­ness, pro­mote the ben­e­fits of the tech­nol­o­gy, and empow­er their lives.

Can con­nect­ed prod­ucts enhance user jour­neys and expe­ri­ences?