Don’t need wearables? Just wait for spray-on digital memory, clothes that measure your vital signs, and enhanced 3D

The Sony Walkman, the Nintendo GameBoy, and the iPhone; all devices that define a generation of gadgets and gadget buyers. For all the talk about wearable smart devices, there is no iconic device to rival any of those. Coupled with some worrying sales figures, the tech world is wondering if wearables were just a fad.

For now, it’s only fitness bands that are suffering, with weak sales for brand leaders Fitbit and Jawbone. Cue a new generation of so-called “performance fitness watches” from the likes of Garmin, TomTom, Polar and Suunto – and also a beefed-up Apple Watch and Samsung Gear S3, the brand leaders – alongside smarter efforts from traditional watchmakers like Fossil and TAG Heuer.

But there’s a problem; many people don’t wear watches. Not even smartwatch makers, it seems.

“I am always confused as to what smartwatches are for when we have smartphones,” said Eric Xu Zhijun, Huawei’s chief executive, during the company’s Global Analyst Summit 2017 held in Shenzhen earlier this month. No-one expected him to say that, but it’s true; who even needs smartwatches and wearables?

Inside five years that will seem like a stupid question. By then, we’ll all be using them because the technology that currently makes them clunky and largely pointless is on the cusp of radical change, some in the industry believe. Before long, sleek, lightweight, untethered, unbreakable and flexible wearables will replace phones.