Basis CEO: Wearable firms need to think harder about what they put in front of consumers

SAN FRANCISCO — The key to getting consumers to care about wearables is being more thoughtful about designing them, according to Basis Science CEO Jeff Holove.

“The mainstream consumer is not just waiting and sitting around for the day when they wear technology,” Holove said at our MobileBeat conference today. “They’ll want to do it if it does something very valuable for them … We have to figure out what can it [wearables] do because it’s worn.”

[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":1504283,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"business,mobile,","session":"B"}']

Basis, which was acquired by Intel earlier this year, is best known for its powerful fitness tracker, which is a step above what most consumer fitness gadgets offer. The Basis band looks more like a smartwatch, and it can track your heart rate, sweat levels, and sleep.

Now that the wearable market is finally heating up. We’ve got smartwatches inbound and robust health platforms coming from Apple and Google, and Holove seems increasingly concerned about companies trying to tackle wearables thoughtlessly. (Who knows how many consumers Samsung turned off from wearables with its first Galaxy Gear smartwatch, for example?)

“There’s not gravity drawing them [consumers] to wearing a wearable, there’s gravity drawing them away from it,” Holove said.

Like most new product categories, the companies who can figure out how to more thoughtful about their implementation of wearables are more likely to succeed. That’s probably why so many gadget fans are obsessed with Apple’s rumored iWatch; the company that built the iPhone likely has the best shot of creating the first killer wearable.