According to a May, 2015 IHS iSuppli market research report, smart watches, activity trackers, fitness/sports monitors, and Bluetooth® headsets will total more than 150 million units by 2018. OEMs building these wearable devices know that their customers have the same basic desires: intuitive interactivity, high reliability, long battery life, and fashionable stylishness.

Choosing the right hardware (sensors and processing platform) is an important step towards delivering a market-beating wearable, but going forward we will all come to realize that choosing the right algorithms to complement the hardware is becoming an even more important step. For example, we recently delivered an enhanced Double-Tap gesture detection algorithm as part of its comprehensive SenseMe™ library.

You might be tempted to shrug your shoulders and say “big deal”. However, it’s actually a very big deal. Enhanced gesture detection has the potential to directly affect all four of the key customer “care abouts” we listed earlier. Touch and movement are highly intuitive ways of interacting with a wearable device. Enhancing this capability allows OEMs to remove mechanical buttons, improving device reliability by eliminating potential dust and moisture intrusion points. Improved algorithms reduce overall device power consumption and extend battery life. Finally, devices become sleeker and more stylish as their user interactivity becomes focused on a touchscreen or internalized by a motion-based sensor.

So there you have it. One small step for an algorithm. One giant leap for wearable OEMs and their customers.