Purpose As the smartphone market arrived at its saturation, from world leading information and communications technologies (ICT) businesses to startups, companies are competing to develop innovative wearable device products and suitable contents. Utility, technology, design, price, and various killer contents development targeting every customer's need should be considered for a success in the wearable device market. Design/methodology/approach Prior studies on innovation technology of ICT field have mainly focused on the innovation diffusion theory, expectation confirmation theory, and technology acceptance model, this study suggested the innovation resistance factors of adopting the smart wearable devices based on the innovation resistance model and theory of perceived risk. The model comprises the following two characteristics factors: 1) innovation characteristics which include perceived relative advantages, perceived compatability, perceived complexity, and perceived risk, 2) consumer characteristics which include attitudes towards innovation and existing products (i.e., mobile devices and analog watches). This study developed an extended innovation resistance model to explain the intention to acceptance of wearable devices consumers and collected 284 online survey responses from the non-consumers of the wearable devices. Findings The findings of this study suggest that perceived relative advantage, perceived compatibility, perceived complexity, perceived risk, attitudes towards innovation and attitudes towards existing analog watches affected the innovation resistance which has negative influence on the intention to adoption of wearable devices.