After months of waiting, the new and super hyped LG G Watch and Samsung Gear Live, powered by Android Wear, are now available for purchase. Wearers must already have an Android phone running Android 4.3 or above in order to use this nifty piece of wearable technology. The main aim of the watch according to David Singleton, the Director of Engineering for the Android Division, is to “quickly show you relevant information, and make sure you never miss an important message, while letting you stay engaged with the people that you are actually with”.
The wearer’s smart phone and the watch are synced so that when a text message or call is received, the watch will provide an alert. The user can then answer or reject the call or send a canned text message in response using their watch. If the wearer adds an event to their calendar using their watch, this will automatically be added to their phone calendar and so on with other actions.
Wearers can view navigational and weather information using the watch as well as using voice control to ask questions such as “how far is it to the train station?” or “how many calories in a butternut squash?” Much of the information that will appear on screen is ‘based on context’ as opposed to the device waiting to be given a command. This could be bus time tables being displayed depending on which area you are in at the time, or flight information being shown to coincide with a day of travel as scheduled in your calendar.
From your watch you can also pause, play or skip music tracks using voice control. Basic fitness tracking such as heart rate monitors and pedometers are also available through the watch.
The device is currently available in two colours; ‘black titan’ and ‘white gold’ with users being able to switch out the strap for any standard watch strap if they so wish. The device is water and dust resistant and has a slim battery for ultimate comfort. The watch has a 1.65-inch IPS LCD full colour display of 280×280 pixels. When not in use the display will revert to black and white so as to save battery power. When it comes to charge, the Android Wear watch should last you throughout the whole day and then be charged overnight ready for the next day’s use.
The release comes just ahead of the heavily rumoured iWatch launch in October. Rumoured features of Google iWatch include full iOS compatibility and a four day battery life.