At the Google I/O 2014 developer conference, David Singleton, director of engineering for Google showcased Android Wear, Google’s software for smartwatches. According to the IDTechex report, wearables are projected to be the dominant sector of tech, especially in North America, and the industry is expected to spend over $14 billion in 2014 and $70 billion by 2024-and Google is full steam ahead to compete with the anticipated Apple wearables.
The Android Wear will be included on the LG G, Samsung Gear Live and Moto 360. The LG and Gear will be available later today and the Moto will be available later this summer.
While the watches do sync to ones’ smartphone, the ability to manage more inbound and outbound communication is significantly elevated with Android Wear.
According to Singleton, Android users check their phones 125 per day, and their thought is, why not limit the need to pull out ones’ phone, and instead deal with the communication and notifcations via smartwatch and focus more on your surroundings or tasks.
The new features for Android Wear software include:
Ease of use with more swiping – as the user swipes through the pages, one can swipe horizontally to see what else is on that particular page, swipe up to scroll through the pages, swipe away notifications or press and hold to choose different pages.
Keep in sync – Google has strived to make sure that whatever the user does or is happening on their smartphone is reflected on the smartwatch or vice versa, this includes:
*Updates on apps are synced automatically to the watch or if you download a new app on your smartphone, that too will be available on the smartwatch
*Ability to take or cancel a call or send an SMS message in response
*Enhanced voice-recognition with the ability to activate anything from note taking to music controls
*Auto bridges notifications from apps
*The software supports Hangouts and Gmail
*Ability to control apps (Pinterest or Eat24) and activate additional requests (Google Maps or search)
Fitness – the watch will be able to track ones’ activity and heartrate
Google products – the software will allow the user to activate Google Play, Google TV, Google Maps even the Android Auto through the smartwatch.
For you developers out there, you’ll be able to get the SDK today and make apps for Android Wear. As mentioned before, once the user uploads the app to their smartphone, it will automatically sync to the smartwatch. That’s cool.
So for those people out there that want to cook, read the ingredients on their watch, you can do that, and the device is water-resistant as well.
Get ready to be jealous because everyone of the 6,000K attendees will walk away with one of the new Android Wear watches.
Read more coverage on smartwatches at AZTB.
Graphics from Google I/O 2014 Live Stream