Android Wear Gets Major Update

The Apple watch seems to be getting all the attention recently, however Google announced today a major update to their Android Wear operating system. We’re glad to say it includes some pretty interesting features.

One of the first changes Google has made to their wrist bound OS is the extension of always on watch faces to now include applications. You will no longer have to shake, tap or shout at your watch to get the screen to light up. Google show a few use cases for this on their news blog, they were uses such as a map face and a to do list. To prevent applications from eating up your devices battery life, the screen changes ito black and white mode when the device senses that it is not in a viewable position.

Secondly the update brings the ability to connect to wireless networks independently of an android device or tablet. This means that if your Android wear device has built-in WiFi then you will be able to receive notifications, send messages and download more apps without needing your phone nearby. However, the phone must have a data connection of some kind for the Android wear device to control it. You can even find your phone by asking your watch!

Google have also changed the way you can activate the watch face to use the device. They have added a feature that allows you to flick your wrist to scroll down the stream of news and notifications; that’s really useful if you have your hands full.

Finally, the companies last major change is the addition being able to draw an emoji on to the watch screen; similar to the Android handwriting app Google released a couple of days ago. If you’re too busy to write a message then you can squiggle an emoji on the interface and then send it as a hangouts or text message.

The update will be released over the next few weeks according to google.

Thank you to Techreport for this information

Images courtesy of The Google Blog