Android Wear Is Here

An anonymous reader writes with this breakdown and comparison of the first two Android Wear watches available today. The first two watches built on the Android Wear platform launch today. One is from LG, the G Watch, and the other is from its arch Korean peninsular rival, Samsung, the Gear Live. Should you buy one today? Maybe. It depends on how early you like to adopt. Let's take a quick trip through analysis lane. First, let's talk about Android Wear, because both watches run on the same platform, and both of them have more or less the same software. Android Wear really does two main things, it moves app notifications to the watch's face, and it puts Google Now's voice-powered search capabilities on your wrist. That's about it. But that's pretty powerful.

Comments

Call me

[Chrisq]

call me when a charge lasts a week or so. So long as I have to charge it every day I'l keep my solar powered radio synced watch which has told me the time for the last 5 years without having to touch it.

Re:Call me

[MozeeToby]

Why don't thy have wireless charging on these things? It wouldn't be so bad if I took off my watch, threw it on the dresser, and went to bed. Having to stop and fiddle with a charger for multiple devices is a bit of a no go IMO.

Re:Call me

[T.E.D.]

call me when a charge lasts a week or so.

I can't speak for those two watches. However, I've found on my Pebble that if I use a fuzzy-time watchface (the display right now reads "almost one", and doesn't need to change except about every 4 minutes or so), I only lose about 10% charge a day. That means, yes I only need to charge it once a week. In fact, it could be a week and a half, but I'm not the kind of guy who likes to live dangerously.

Re:Call me

[Charliemopps]

but in the fine print the watch requires its own subscription and raises your rate by more than the watch is worth.

Citation?

The watch doesn't have a cellular radio, like some tablets do. It can't consume data directly.

It doesn't have a cellular radio and neither do that tablets.
The idea is, you wifi tether your table/watch to your phone.
But, to get the deal, you need a larger data package because the tablet/watch will cause you to consume more data.
Or at least, that's what they tell you. It clearly wont cause you to use more data, but they hit you with the deal at the checkout so you don't have time to really think about it.
It's usually proposed like:
*you go in to get a new phone and contract and are almost done with the purchase*
Salesman:"Oh, hey, do you want a free tablet? There's a deal going on right now..."
You:"Free you say? Hell yea!"
Salesman:"Ok, let me write that... it's not letting me apply it... oh, you only have the 1gig data plan. You need the 2gig plan to qualify. But that's only an extra $10"
You:"$10 for a tablet? I could sell that on craigslist even if I didn't need it! Sold!"
*you get your first bill*
-activation fee for the tablet even though there was nothing to "activate"
-that $10 is monthly, they weren't exactly clear on that
-you asked for insurance on the phone and they gave it to you for the tablet as well, doubling the cost of the insurance
*you start banging your head on your desk as you realize you just paid over $300 for a $150 tablet*

They've tried the same scam on me twice now. Luckly I work with salespeople all day long and know if the word "Free" leaves a salesmans lips I'm about to get scammed.

So they post notifications to your hand...

[Anonymous Coward]

...instead of you reading them when you feel like, and they need ot be recharged every day. For $200. WOW!

Watches?

[Justpin]

I don't think this will pick up tbh, there is a little social experiment you can perform, in a crowd ask people who are wearing watches to put their hands up, you'll find its mostly the older people who wear watches. I haven't worn a watch (34) since I was 23.

Re:Watches?

[CastrTroy]

And of those who wear watches, 90% of them will probably be wearing them as jewelry. The time keeping functionality is secondary. Even among the younger people I know who wear them, it's mostly just a fashion accessory.

Longer sentences. Will not hurt. You.

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> Maybe. It depends on how early you like to adopt. That's about it. But that's pretty powerful.

Your writing style. Is the suck.

Why the Displays?

[NoZart]

Why the hell are they so fixated on using Displays? Give it an e-paper face and be done with it - you get "always on" and better battery live. And even monochrome displays can be made to look beautiful

Re:Why the Displays?

[DNS-and-BIND]

Because the pretentious twat reviewer types will savagely treat any monochrome product. Moreover the trendy hipster crowd would never use anything not in full color. It would be a sales disaster. Practical? Who the hell ever got invited to parties for being practical?

In a watch, batteries should last a year or more

[mark-t]

IMO, of course.

How do they handle water?

[NotDrWho]

Are these water-resistant? I wash my hands a lot and would hate to throw $200 away on a watch that's going to die a quick death when exposed to a little water.

Re:How do they handle water?

[gstoddart]

And, just as important, how rugged is it?

A normal watch is going to get bashed around, bumped into things, and generally get itself some abuse. The crystal is going to take daily abuse, and the strap needs to be pretty solid.

And I'm suddenly imagining someone with a busted screen on their expensive toy. And I suspect tech companies making a watch will not really be focused on the things which makes a watch serviceable in the first place.

Re:How do they handle water?

[jojoba_oil]

They are both advertised as IP67 dust- and water-resistant.

Google's marketing claims they're even safe to wear while showering:
https://play.google.com/store/...
https://play.google.com/store/...

Not sure I'd do that if I got one...

Moto 360

[WaffleMonster]

Being square was like so 60's. I want round watches which don't resemble 80's Timex wrist calculators.

Same old discussion

[gauauu]

Here we go again. Let's just skip ahead to the arguments made every time there's a story about smart watches. Please note that the exclamation point at the end of each argument is the indicator that THIS argument is right, and everyone else is a moron.

1. Nobody wears watches anymore, they are just jewelry!
  1a. These are too cheap and ugly to count as jewelry. I only wear a $180000 dollar watch to show off how awesome I am!
  1b. I wear a watch, because I hate pulling my cell phone out of my pocket!

2. These are dumb, the charge doesn't last long enough to be useful.
  2a. My $5 watch from 1993 never needs to be charged!
  2b. My $180000 watch doesn't have a battery, it is wound by a servant that comes into my room every night to care for the watch!

3. They aren't rugged/waterproof enough!
  3a. Neither is your $1800000 jewelry watch!
  3b. I don't care what happens to my $5 watch, but it keeps on working, what about these?
  3c. I regularly go scuba diving, parachuting, race car driving, and enjoying fine wine on my yacht. That's when I'm not busy having great sex twice a day. This watch won't work for me!

4. I don't want to be MORE plugged in! What happened to just getting away from all your notifications and enjoying life?

Ok, now that we've gotten those out of the way, is there any NEW discussion about these things, or should we just move on?

Re:Same old discussion

[Dixie_Flatline]

My fundamental objection to these devices is that there isn't enough of a UI change to fit the form factor they're on.

One of the reasons Windows Mobile was kinda lousy was because they tried to shrink a desktop OS down onto a phone (and now they're making the same weird mistake by scaling a mobile OS up to the desktop). Fundamentally, these are different things, so they need different ways to interact.

These watches seem similar. A mobile OS that's been massaged a bit, but realistically makes more sense on your phone than on your wrist. Watches were (are) great for the amount of information they deliver in the time they deliver it. That is, a small snippet of info, delivered incredibly quickly. Your interaction with it is minimal. For a few things, like meeting notifications, maybe these smart watches make sense. But for emails or texts, they fall down a bit in my mind because you need more information than is readily absorbed at a glance.

One of my other problems with them is that except for notifications, they don't really make you any faster. Assume that you get an email, and your watch lets you know. From the demo slides I've seen, the watches let you see some information, delete the email, open the email on your phone, or start composing a reply--also on your phone.

For the last two operations, you have to pull the phone out anyway; I'm not sure what you get by starting to open them while you're still staring at your wrist. Deleting the email from your watch is potentially useful, but that's a bit of a stretch; I don't think I've ever seen an email that it's urgent to delete.

So, yeah. The problem isn't with any of the things you mentioned, the problem is that I think we're still trying to figure out exactly what the watch could possibly be used for, and basing the operation on the operation of a completely different device with a wholly different interaction model and parameters.

No health tracking?

[jeffmflanagan]

Why would anyone want to strap a watch to their wrist if it's not picking up heart rate, body temp, movement, etc... If it just has Android functionality, I already have a HTC One M8 that can do everything it does and more. I'll stick with my Basis smart watch until I can get the health tracking and the Android functionality in the same package.

Recent graduate.

[drainbramage]

From the Kirk. School. Of writing.

Re:In a watch, batteries should last a year or mor

[AuMatar]

But the smartphone allowed people to do things they couldn't already do. The smartwatch allows them to.... not take their smartphone out of their pocket. That's it, its a subset of all the functionality of their phone, and it doesn't do most of them that well. There's nothing compelling about them.