Tag: android wear

Smartwatches from LG and Samsung now available for pre-order

Consumers can purchase new wearable devices from Google Play.

Yesterday, Wednesday, June 25, 2014, the long awaited Android Wear powered and web connected LG G and Samsung Gear Live smartwatches were made available at the Google Play store for consumers to pre-order.

Google announced that this wearable tech is ready for the market.

During its annual I/O developers conference, which was held in San Francisco, California yesterday, the search engine giant made it known that the Samsung Gear Live smartwatch and the LG G smartwatch are market ready. However, the company stated that Motorola’s smartwatch – Moto 360 – will not be going on sale until later on in the summer.

In addition, Google declared that the voice enabled Android Wear platform is available in API for developers. This feature allows users to verbally interact with their wearables in a way that is not unlike Google Now.

Furthermore, social media has been integrated into the devices. For instance, if a user likes another person’s pin about a restaurant on Pinterest, the watch will alert the user when they are near the restaurant. Also, users can ask their smartwatch to call them a car with Lyft, which knows where the user is located from the watch’s GPS. Google demoed the notifications and voice commands during the conference.

Android Wear smartwatches will be available with circular and square screens.

According to Google’s director of engineering, David Singleton, Android Wear devices will be made available with screens of different shapes and sizes. He said that both smartwatch models from Samsung and LG have square displays, but Motorola’s will be round. He also said that the devices will be available in a diverse range of “fashionable designs.”

“We’re right at the beginning of a new phase of the miniaturization of technology, which means it’s finally possible to make a small computer that can fit comfortably on your body all day long,” Singleton said during the conference.

The Samsung Gear Live costs $199 and the LG G carries a $229 price tag. Those who pre-order either of these smartwatches from Google Play should receive them on July 7.

Smartwatch display from LG will be “always-on”

This suggests that the Android based wearable technology may have overcome the battery life issue.

LG has now released a teaser page for its smartwatch based on the Android Wear operating system by Google for wearable technology, which has shown that the manufacturer is now able to provide an “always-on” mobile device display.

The G Watch teaser has provided a surprising amount of insight about what the gadget has to offer.

This one point about the display will set the LG smartwatch apart from the latest Galaxy Gear mobile devices. Samsung’s wearable technology devices keep the displays turned off until the wrist is flicked upward. That said, while LG has given that much information about its upcoming wearables, it has not explained exactly how it will be able to accomplish this screen that is always on. That said, there are two primary possibilities that have been identified.

There are some other always on smartwatch gadgets that have already hit the market.

One was seen in the SmartWatch 2 from Sony ,which uses an LCD screen that is “transreflective”. While the color display in those wearables can last for days on a single charge, when it is not actively being used, it switches into grayscale mode in order to help to conserve power.Smartwatch - Battery Life

The other possibility could be similar to the Mirasol display technology from Qualcomm, which allows the display to remain in full color for days at a time when starting at a full charge. Though this technology has yet to make its way into a mass market product, the company has been selling the Toq experimental watch product that uses that type of display.

Other details have also been released by LG, such as the fact that it will be available in “champagne gold” with a white strap, or in black with a black strap. These gadgets will be both dust and water resistant to help to ensure a longer lifespan.

That said, it is the power efficiency that is drawing the largest amount of attention to this smartwatch, as this is one of the issues that is causing the greatest struggles in the development of mobile devices in this category.