Wearable Technology

Wearables are capable of doing more than displaying smartphone notifications and tracking how many steps you took today. A growing number of wearables are adding features like contactless payments as well. There are a lot of big companies betting on the future of wearable payment technology.

In a study from Juniper Research they found that the global value of mobile and wearable contactless payments is expected to reach $95 billion annually by 2018. Meanwhile, Gartner anticipates that by 2018 half of all consumers in mature markets will use smartphones or wearables for mobile payments.

And, though it may feel a little strange to understand those analytical studies — they really shouldn’t be that surprising.

Thanks to near field communications (NFC) technology, contactless payments have already become a reality for smartphone users.

While it’s too early to name a leader in wearable payment technology, here is are the top players who are paving the way for wearable payment technology.

Apple Watch

Samsung Gear G3

Jawbone UP4

Nymi Band

Ringly

Other Wearables

These are just some of the wearable payment technologies available. There’s also the Sony Wena, Swatch Touch Zero One, and the Microsoft Band 2. And, after acquiring the mobile payment solution Coin, Fitbit is also in position to enter the wearable payment technology market as well.

We can expect to see more and more wearable payment options in the future.