EXCLUSIVE — Will bringing contactless payments to Fitbit help give the wearable market a much-needed jolt?

That’s the hope of payment facilitators like Mastercard, Visa, and American Express, at any rate, which announced today they would be integrating payments with Fitbit’s first smartwatch, the Fitbit Ionic.

The Ionic marks Fitibit’s first smartwatch, putting it in direct competition with the Apple Watch, which incidentally, will now support a variety of workout features, the company reported today.

Wearables might still be viewed as a bit of niche consumer device, but they are a category that’s been seeing steady growth, Stephane Wyper, senior vice president of new commerce partnerships and commercialization for Mastercard, told Bank Innovation.

“We’re seeing it gain real consumer traction,” said Wyper, citing the Mary Meeker report which put the number of wearable devices sold for 2016 at 102 million, up from 82 million in 2015. “We definitely see wearables as an important component of the Internet of Things space.”

To make payments on the Ionic, users will sign up to Fitbit’s new “Fitbit Pay” service, before authenticating and loading their chosen card. The authentication process will utilize tokenization technology from Mastercard and Visa, while AmEx users will input a 4-digit PIN.

Of course, an increase of consumers with wearable devices doesn’t necessarily mean an increase in consumers paying with them; but adding a network of devices, merchants, and payment capabilities could change that.

Mastercard, for instance, will support payments with 6.6 million contactless payment terminals available for consumer use across the globe.

Mastercard is hoping its integration with Fitbit and like partnerships will lead the way, especially as consumers move farther and farther away from traditional payment methods.

Among these, according to Wyper, is bringing payments to places like the “smart” or connected car, or within the home with connected devices like one’s refrigerator. Mastercard (and Visa) also support Apple Pay, which powers the payment capabilities of the company’s Apple Watch.

“Consumers are evolving to use very different devices [for payments] beyond smartphones, beyond plastic,” said Wyper. “We’ve been focused on IoT for a couple of years now, on expanding the reach into new capabilities and devices.”

When it comes to the Fitbit integration, the capability will first be available within the U.S. for both Mastercard, Visa, and AmEx, with the help of participating banks. The Ionic is available for pre-order on Fitbit’s site now, and is expected to launch in October 2017.