Google today announced Android Wear, customized for wearables. At present the focus will be on smartphones but later on support will be added for health monitors, fitness trackers and the likes. Android Wear is simple terms is a miniature version of Android capable of understanding voice input and provide voice feedback. Google Now gets a huge leg-up in the wearables space with Android Wear.
Here's what Android Wear can do:
- Useful information when you need it most. Android Wear shows you info and suggestions you need, right when you need them. The wide variety of Android applications means you’ll receive the latest posts and updates from your favorite social apps, chats from your preferred messaging apps, notifications from shopping, news and photography apps, and more.
- Straight answers to spoken questions. Just say “Ok Google” to ask questions, like how many calories are in an avocado, what time your flight leaves, and the score of the game. Or say “Ok Google” to get stuff done, like calling a taxi, sending a text, making a restaurant reservation or setting an alarm.
- The ability to better monitor your health and fitness. Hit your exercise goals with reminders and fitness summaries from Android Wear. Your favorite fitness apps can give you real-time speed, distance and time information on your wrist for your run, cycle or walk.
- Your key to a multiscreen world. Android Wear lets you access and control other devices from your wrist. Just say “Ok Google” to fire up a music playlist on your phone, or cast your favorite movie to your TV. There’s a lot of possibilities here so we’re eager to see what developers build.
Both LG and Motorola have watches which are coming out soon using Android Wear. You can see both in the promo video below, the square one is LG's smartwatch while the round one is Motorola's dubbed the MOTO 360.
Google has already partnered with OEM's like LG, Samsung, HTC and Asus alongwith chipmakers including Qualcomm, Broadcom, Intel, Mediatek and Imagination Technologies. LG's G-Watch developed in co-operation with Google has also gone official featuring a 1.65-inch 280 x 280 pixels display, 512 MB RAM and 4 GB internal storage and is expected to be available later this year.
That's not all a Developer preview of Android Wear is also available right now and Google says that most apps can be ported with very little to no effort.
