Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Android Wear adding Bluetooth support, GPS, custom watch faces in future updates

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Your Android Wear watch may soon track that daily run or play music through Bluetooth-connected headphones.

Such capabilities are part of the growing plans vision detailed by two Google engineers in a recent interview with CNET.
Director of Engineering for Android Wear David Singleton and Vice President of Engineering for Android Hiroshi Lockheimer told CNET that they want to extend how Android Wear interacts with other devices and expand developers' flexibility in making custom watch faces. 
By adding GPS natively to Android Wear watches, you could conceivably ditch your phone during a jog, as the watch could track the route. With Bluetooth connectivity it could send music directly to your headphones. Currently you must rely on a connected Android phone to perform such actions.
The pair also promised support for custom watch faces, with Singleton praising "tremendous innovation from some third parties who have been able to figure out how to do some of this on their own."
That is a different tone from July when a Google developer advocate said developers should stop making such watch faces and wait until an API was ready, likely to coincide with the release of Android L.
The interview comes right before a flurry of smartwatch announcements. Asus, LG, Sony, and Motorola are all unveiling Android Wear-powered watches in the next week. While the Moto 360 is one of the most anticipated, other hardware makers have ramped up their effort to also add in a competitor that also features a traditional round watchface.

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