Google taps your wrist with Android Wear & more

Android was never designed for smartwatches but Google, anticipating the trend, has now released a special version of Android called Android Wear. Apart from smartwatches, Wear can also extend to other wearable technology, limited only by the imagination of its inventor.

Since a wearable device doesn’t need to be as feature-rich as a phone or a tablet, Android Wear can be lightweight, putting less of a strain on smaller wearables that have limited hardware capabilities and battery life. Instead, Android Wear will focus more on user voice commands and location-based information.

Motorola’s Moto 360 and LG’s G Watch will be among the first to use the new operating system — both are expected to launch in mid-2014 for an as yet undisclosed price.

LG G Watch

LG’s take has a more common (for a smartwatch) square shape and, like some other existing offerings, has a focus on the users’ health, while giving the usual phone notifi cations at the fl ick of a wrist.

Moto 360

Defi nitely, the more striking of the two, Motorola’s take on the smartwatch has a traditional (for an analogue watch) round shape. It has a circular display too, which looks great but also raises concerns about costs.