Android Smartwatches
Background and Identification
Android Wear, now known as Wear OS as of March 2018, is a mobile operating system by Google designed specifically for wearable smart devices. The OS is designed to allow the wearable device to act as a companion to a smartphone or other mobile device, displaying notifications coming from the phone like messages directly on the face of the smartwatch. The user can also adjust things like custom watch faces, notification display preferences, and vibration and tone settings. Users can view turn-by-turn directions, pick up calls, and track activity like step counters and heart rate monitors all from a smartwatch using the OS. There is also functionality that allows a user to control their phone through their watch to do things like send texts, control music, or activate voice assistant software. Since the software is built off the Android platform, there are also several app developers with third party apps for smart wearables.
Several companies that were already producing Android smartphones were announced as partners to the Android Wear platform when it launched in 2014, including Motorola, Samsung, Asus, LG, and HTC. The same year, two smartwatches were released, the LG G Watch and the Samsung Gear Live, which both ran on the new OS.