Enhancing User Engagement in Wearable Apps through Gamification

With the changing consumer behaviour and desires, the lines between the industries such as retail, fashion, fintech and healthcare are slowly and steadily fading with technology. What we are seeing today is a universe where smartwatches are used for payments, smartphones are enabling everything from virtual shopping to virtual tours, credit cards are branded with in-store offers, and online pharmacies are delivering smart health devices right at the doorstep. 

One such technology that is changing the way we look at the future is - Wearables.
From smart glasses to watches, earphones to smart rings, health trackers to biosensors and more - wearables have truly merged the physical world with the virtual one. 

Tapping the Trends with Wearables Technology:

“The global wearable technology market size is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.6% from 2023 to 2030 - Grand View Research”

Driven by the increasing user adoption, wearable devices today are witnessing a huge growth, with their true potential in their capacity to effectively engage users. 

In order to ride the wave of success with wearables, organizations are leveraging immersive features such as haptic technology, voice & gesture control, personalization and much more to drive user retention and loyalty. One such popular way to boost user engagement in wearables apps today is through Gamification. 

By adding game-like features to the wearable universe, developers can make the user-journeys more intuitive, interactive and compelling. 

Let’s have a look at how organizations can tap the trends, leverage gamification & craft memorable user experiences with wearable tech!

Getting Started with Gamification

Meant to increase adoption and engagement within the app environment, Gamification involves bringing together game-like elements into non-gaming scenarios. It relies on traditional game components such as leaderboards, points, rewards, badges and challenges - satisfying the human need for recognition & appreciation. Gamification lends instant gratification, improves performance, excites users and rewards them with real-world incentives. 

When it comes to wearables, gamification can enhance well-being, improve engagements and transform human interactions with technology. 

How Gamification Can Enhance User Engagement in Wearable Apps?

Real-Time Recognition and Rewards

Whether reaching goals such as ‘10k steps in a day’ or getting rewarded for maintaining a ‘30-day streak’, gamification-led badges and rewards on wearables can motivate users to keep performing well. These badges serve as visual reminders of success and bring back users to the platform everyday to check-in their progress and aim for higher rewards.

 
Goal-Setting & Personalization

Wearable apps can help you track progress of existing goals and step-up to newer ones.
They can also help to set goals to one’s own capabilities & preferences such as ‘Sleep for 8 hours’ or ‘Complete 2k steps in 20 minutes’ et al, through AI-driven personalization. 

Through real-time updates, wearables can highlight personal wins using ‘points’ and give users the motivation to perform better every time.

Fostering Sense of Community

To promote healthy competitiveness, wearables can compare your performance with other participants/friends, sharing the same goal, and showcase the data such as calories burned, total steps etc. through leaderboard.

Challenges can take the game to the next level and encourage users to complete the task faster and push themselves harder. In order to keep users motivated, group challenges such as ‘Longest workout streak’, ‘Highest no. of steps in a week’ etc. can be introduced in wearables.

Social interactions can further help to make the entire experience more interactive and enjoyable.

Empowering Users to Make Better Choices

With notifications such as heart rate alert, water alert, step count and more, wearables empower users to make informed decisions and make better choices. Some wearables can also scan your food and offer nutrition-related information, personalized suggestions and set you up for a healthy lifestyle.

Leveraging Data to Drive Innovation

By analyzing one’s preferences & patterns, wearables can suggest customized fitness sessions, offer guidance according to the user's goals, create personal diet charts, and showcase challenges that bring the best out of their limited time. By leveraging data analytics, businesses can offer tailored experiences to customers, drive innovation and keep them coming back for more.

Industry-wide Application of Wearables: 

Healthcare

In the healthcare industry, wearables enable tracking of vital signs such as blood pressure, glucose levels & heart rate; sleep patterns and physical activity. These devices help to facilitate remote patient monitoring and improve patient outcomes. 

ALSO READ: How to Integrate Gamification in Healthcare Apps?

Finance

With features such as real-time notifications, transaction alerts, biometric authentication and facial recognition, wearables enhance user experience by making financial decision-making more efficient and accessible.

ALSO READ: Strategic Gamification: A CXO’s Guide for Transforming Fintech UX

E-commerce & Retail

In the e-commerce & retail sector, wearables such as smart glasses and smartwatches enable real-time inventory update, location based notifications, virtual try-ons and loyalty rewards to enhance user experience. 

Travel & Transportation

Wearables are great to enhance the experiences of travellers, with features like seamless check-in & check out, AR-enabled virtual tours, smart wristbands and key cards and seamless payment options.

Successful Wearable Apps Leveraging Gamification

Fitbit

Set personalized goals, earn virtual rewards and badges and join community-wide fitness competitions through FitBit. The social interaction features in the application allow users to connect and share their fitness journeys with people they know as well as encourage & support others who are reaching their milestones.

Apple Watch

Through activity rings, personalized coaching and competitions, Apple watch helps its users track their progress and get instant feedback. The ring offers special visual cues like ‘Stand’, ‘Move’ etc. to keep users at the top of their goals at any point. 

Ray-Ban’s Meta Smart Glasses

With features like open ear audio, voice command, touch control, easy pairing, 12mp camera, seamless calling etc., Ray-Ban’s smart glasses help users stay as hands-free as possible. 

Levi's Commuter Jacket

These jackets help cyclists to take & manage calls, check messages, play music, get directions & do lots more. In a move to avoid smartphone distractions, users can simply use hand gestures to take the above actions, avoiding any on-road mishap from using a smartphone.

Google Assistant for Wearables

Google assistant for wearables helps users initiate a workout, get answers quickly, set timer, check weather, make or update shopping list and do lots more with just a long-press on Google’s smartwatch. Access vital information, manage tasks, plan appointments & keep users hooked to their wrists.

Apple Vision Pro

Deep dive into the world of augmented reality with Apple Vision Pro. Highly interactive, these are loaded with features such as eye tracking hand gestures, 4K display, switch control, zoom, voice control and more, that take wearable gamification to the next level. 

Humane AI’s Pin

Pin utilizes speech and touch along with a laser ink display that uses your palm as a screen to display information. It also leverages certain other features such as translation, voice search and a food-analysis tool.

What to Keep in Mind When Integrating Gamification with Wearable Technology

Developers need to collect user feedback, run A/B testing, analyze the data consistently and figure out any scope of improvement. For example, if a user is not active during morning hours, notifications can be halted for the period to avoid any discontentment. Similarly, if a user skips a challenge, making rewards more lucrative can be a way to increase engagement.   

Developers can tailor gamification elements - such as points, rewards, challenges & more as per user’s preferences and increase user participation on the platform. 

Also, theme iterations, feature incorporation and regular updates can keep your wearable app-experience fresh as new. Thus, enhancing the user experience & treating your users with elements of surprise can propel the wearable engagement graph.

Leverage our expertise in Artificial Intelligence, AR/VR technology & advanced analytics & schedule a no-obligation consultation with our experts today!