Android Wearables: Developer Preview

Looks like they&#x27;re taking a lot of what they&#x27;ve built for Google Glass, and moved it to a watch form factor, which should give it a much better chance of success.<p>I personally have been wearing a pebble for over 6 months now and it&#x27;s one of the best purchases I&#x27;ve ever made. I don&#x27;t see myself ever not owning a smart watch again and I&#x27;m really excited to see what Google can do with this.

Only problem is, while the software may be mature at this point, the HW just isn&#x27;t there. These bulky watches aren&#x27;t going anywhere. Same for glasses.<p>These devices will become widespread when they&#x27;ll come in sizes comparable to &quot;analog&quot; offerings and, crucially, when we&#x27;ll start seeing products thought by designers instead of engineers.

Problem is ... I suspect that the Wearables SDK will be another case of Google launching proprietary libraries on Android. I have no problem with proprietary, but a lot of people think that because it&#x27;s Android, it is open. It isn&#x27;t. Core Android gets slimmer, Google&#x27;s tie-in to your business gets fatter (unless you re-write their APIs). As an example, developers followed the location APIs in to the Play SDK ... switching from an open, core API to the Play API without fuss. It&#x27;s creep if you ask me.

Intuitive, form-conscious interfaces are definitely needed, but I think the hardware problem is the biggest hurdle facing wearables. Especially the battery design. I own a Pebble, and there is something significantly different about how I look at charging it... and that&#x27;s with them doing everything they can to eek out battery life. This necessitates e-ink, accelerometer-based backlighting, etc. Having a beautiful display usually means abysmal battery life and an need to shake&#x2F;touch your wearable every time you want to interact with it.

I note that neither of the guys talking on the video (including one who wears spectacles) is using Google Glass. Also that the most prominently displayed information on the &quot;watch&quot; is the temperature. Now, I can understand time not being front and center, but...

Sorry, Google - photorealistic renderings and simulations are <i>not</i> allowed on Kickstarter...<p>Oh, you&#x27;re <i>not</i> trying to sell us that cool watch?<p>Well, somebody will have it up on Kickstarter soon. Probably using your slick video, too.<p>EDIT: Looks like the watch is real (Moto 360), and is coming this summer: <a href="http://moto360.motorola.com/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;moto360.motorola.com&#x2F;</a>

Attempts at making watches do more:<p>Calculator Watch - 80s&#x2F;90s -Enjoyed sucess in still produced<p>Game Watch - 80s&#x2F;90s - pretty much non existent now<p>Radio watch - <a href="http://www.in-ovation-products.com/images/gadget_sports_radio_watch.gif" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.in-ovation-products.com&#x2F;images&#x2F;gadget_sports_radi...</a><p>TV Watch - Too young dont know what happened to these<p>Remote Control Watch - dont know if it ever caught on but it was fun to use it to screw with substitute teacher when playing videos

It&#x27;s interesting that (unlike Google Glass), they are going out of their way to attach this to &quot;Android&quot;. So the question is, is all the code for this going to fall under the same license as AOSP? Will it be <i>part of</i> AOSP? Or is there no code as such, just a bunch of APIs, and the OEMs are going to create proprietary implementations from the ground up? Does it imply the watches are going to be <i>running</i> Android, or can they run <i>any</i> OS as long as it supports the Android Wearable API set?

Watches are jewelry. Because of the &quot;social-classy&quot; value of these products, I do not think that adding them some geeky features will find a real market.